Search and Destroy
by FiercesomestDefenestrator
Summary: A hard-rock mining town deep in Vale's mountains needs help handling an unfamiliar type of Grimm. Enter Team RWBY. They signed up for a short research mission- collect some info, kill a few Grimm. What could possibly go wrong? Follows our Grimm Rats timeline, so be advised: we EARN this T rating.
1. Away Mission

**A/N: Yo! Fiercesomest here with chapter one of our continuing saga- if you've just joined us, this is the third installment in our Grimm Rats series. (The order being Grimm Rats, Road to Recovery, and now Search and Destroy. The one-shots all fit in someplace as well.)**

 **We actually started writing this one before we started Catnip. The plan was to save it till it was all finished and then start posting, but the season ended and, well, here we are. Anyway, the characters and relationships follow directly from Recovery and Tweiss as Nice. If you're checking this out because you like our monochrome, be advised! This isn't following the Catnip timeline at all!**

 **If you haven't read any of the others and you decide to overlook the lack of shipping and want to just get on with reading this one, that's totally fine! There will be a few references to past events, though, so you know.**

 **Other details: this fic follows our usual style- I write for Ruby and Weiss, while Defenestrator writes for Yang and Blake. We divvy up whatever other characters come along, and then we patch it all together into chapters. Given that we started writing before the end of Volume 2, this adventure starts before the Vytal Festival, which means everyone is alive and well for now.**

 **Please note the T rating, the story being set in the same series as Road to Recovery, and the 'for now'.**

 **Shoot us a message if you have any questions (though probably most stuff will get answered as we go along), otherwise read on, fearless reader!**

 **\- Fiercesomest**

* * *

Winter.

For ordinary citizens of Vale, this was the season for snow and sleet and warm cups of hot chocolate treasured close to low-burning Dust-fueled fireplaces.

For the students of Beacon Academy, however, the hard frosts and icicles clinging to the cliffsides outside the school meant training in the cold. The winds across the cliff top bit like Grimm-hard and deep- but today Ruby Rose didn't care.

A lone airship rose into the wide blue of Vale's winter sky, bound for James Point, just beyond the mountains that encircled the city's eastern and southern borders, and she was on it.

The dark-haired girl plastered her face to one of the small portholes that dotted the craft's dented up body, watching the cluster of spires and arches drop away.

"So long, Beacon," she waved to the school and dropped onto the narrow bench lining the wall of the ship, grinning ear to ear, "and hello, first official solo Team RWBY away mission. This is going to be so great, you guys!"

The roar of the twin Dust-driven engines dominated the airship's limited cargo space. Ruby's red cape fluttered in the draft snaking through the dozen less-than-airtight seams of the beat-up transport ship.

"Please," Weiss tossed her white side-tail over her shoulder, brushing loose strands out of her face. She perched on the edge of a crate of ammunition, tugging her pristine jacket's collar closer and pretending to ignore the way the temperature dropped as the ship gained altitude, "it's not like we're actually going to be on our own. This is an entire village we're talking about. I highly doubt the local authorities would hand that much responsibility over to a bunch of second year students."

"Yeah well, I also doubt the local authorities are going to be much help when we go up against those Grimm bat things," Yang waved the hand that wasn't currently being pinned by Blake leaning into her side. The cat Faunus had lost all notions of personal space, keeping ever closer to her space-heater of a partner the colder the weather became.

"They're called Liliac," Blake clarified, eyes narrowing as she studied the notes she had taken on her scroll during their mission briefing.

"Sounds more like a flower than a Grimm if you ask me," Yang cut in with a grin.

Blake's eyes rolled, "One of the more recently discovered species of Grimm... Known to consume blood... Latest reports indicate they may have sonar based capabilities of some sort..."

"So, they'll be able to hear my fist heading for their face from like a mile away?"

"Something like that..." Blake snapped her scroll shut, repositioning herself a bit more comfortably between Yang and one of the larger crates filled with canned goods to help replenish the town's supplies. "There really isn't much known about them yet, hence why they're asking us to send reports on what we find."

"Provided there's anything left to study after a certain trigger-happy _someone_ gets within a hundred yards," Weiss glared at Ruby, who cradled Crescent Rose to her face.

"Hey, I get _three_ hundred yards on a bad day. In the _rain_ ," the sniper protested. The scythe-rifle had seen her through a lot of battles: Grimm, White Fang baddies, even giant steel-shod robots. Her weekend ritual of dissembling, cleaning, polishing out scratches on, and oiling the joints of her lethal weapon served as a reminder that this small, cute girl was a serious fighter.

A serious fighter currently too excited to be brought down by the Schnee heiress's prickly mood. After all, this was a _solo_ mission. Teams almost never got solo missions before senior year! Even if it was supposed to be short, and even if they were going to miss the start of the Vytal Festival, they would be getting to really help people. Ruby jumped up from the metal bench and dodged a bundle of tarps roped between stacks of crates to the low doorway leading to the cockpit. The rivets in the wall shook and Ruby had to brace herself in the doorframe till the turbulence had passed. "Are we there yet?" she called cheerfully over the engines.

"Yeah, hop out," the pilot shouted back, teeth showing in a grin around the stick of red licorice hanging from his mouth. Ruby figured the man, whose name was Chuck, was at least old enough to be her dad, if not grandfather, but the wiry build and salt and pepper five o'clock shadow made it hard to tell. Chuck got on the radio, "You ladies' landing strategies are good for water, right? And a thousand foot drop?"

"No, but really, how far?"

"Hop, skip and a jump," he nodded to the range of mountains rising up across the sound. Their destination lay just beyond those peaks, in the lower hills that preceding the endless forest beyond.

Ruby leaned down to see the mountains through the stripe of windshield, "Wow. Are we going to fly between them? Can I steer?"

Weiss huffed, picking her way across to the door. She caught a fistful of the girl's cloak and dragged her back into the cargo bay before she could finish pestering the pilot for a turn to drive. "Ruby, I do not want to die in a plane crash."

"But he was going to let me steer," Ruby whined, plopping down among the crates next to Yang when she was released.

Weiss took Ruby's former spot by the window, rolling her eyes.

Yang ruffled her little sister's hair. "You can't even drive a _car_ yet, sis." She was halfway to offering driving lessons when the plane shook violently, knocking a couple of stacked crates to the floor. The four huntresses-in-training glanced at each other.

"Turbulence?" Blake offered.

The plane shook again, jostling the ships cargo, human and inanimate alike, as the lights flickered wildly.

"That's some turbulence... Hey Chuck!" with one last violent shake, the lights cut out completely, "Everything all right up there?" Yang's question rang out with deafening clarity - the background droning of the roaring engines was notably absent.

The light from the small windows turned Weiss's hair and white sleeves silver as she tried to see why the engines had gone quiet. A rush of black obscured the window for a split second, and she jerked back, hand going to the sword at her hip.

Then the plane dropped out from under them. Ruby clutched at Yang and the rope net securing the stack of boxes beneath them in the semi-dark. Too bad there weren't nets on everything.

"Loose crates- watch out!" the young team leader called, letting go of the netting in a vain attempt to ward off the tools and other debris hurtling towards her.

"Hit the deck!" Feeling a shadow clone already dissipating behind her signaling Blake's escape, Yang tackled her little sister to the cabin floor, hunkering down with her between the secured crates as any cargo unfortunate enough to be unbound flew overhead.

Blake was already at Weiss's side, peering through the window to see what had startled her teammate, but the tiny porthole's limited view showed her nothing but the rapidly retreating sky.

"Nevermores-" the rattle and whine of the engines flaring back to life drowned out the heiress's words. She grabbed the edge of the bench and hung on for dear life as the ship dove towards the sound.

Ruby braced between the crates, in major danger of leaving the floor. There was an awful _scrrrrrape_ along the outside of the airship's armored body, and gravity kicked back in, making up for lost time by smashing Yang down on top of Ruby while the ship regained altitude.

When they leveled off, the cargo bay lights flickered and the radio intercom crackled to life, "Nothing like dumping a couple Grimm in the drink on a Monday morning, eh, girls?"

Weiss picked herself up off the floor without releasing her deathgrip on the narrow bench as the bay door churned itself open. Icy wind whipped through the space, snatching a sheet of loose burlap and sucking it out into the open sky. Ruby's cloak flew up in her face. She flailed an arm to get it under control, still halfway under Yang as she strained to see past the edge of the steel door.

A massive black tangle of wings floundered in the open water of the sound. A pair of Nevermores, eyes burning crimson and sable feathers drenched as they thrashed, trying in vain to get airborne. Their familiar screeches were lost to the wind and the ship's Dust engines.

"Whoa," Ruby breathed, silver eyes full of awe.

Weiss was pale as a ghost, back on the floor, clinging to of the stout, steel bench supports with both arms. She spat to get her own hair out of her mouth, "Okay, we can close the door now!"

"Did he seriously just cut the power to _nose dive_ directly into a murder of Nevermores?" Blake shot an incredulous look at the door to the cockpit, internally torn between being impressed and terrified.

"Well whatever he did, _some kind of warning would have been nice._ " Yang pushed herself up off of Ruby, shouting the second half of her sentence at the very same cockpit door. After a quick visual check of her little sister revealed no real injury, the brawler's gaze followed Ruby's out to the ocean. One of the Nevermores was using the other as a stepping stone to get airborne again. "Oh no you don't - Blake!" she stretched a hand out, "Throw me a line!"

"On it." Blake unsheathed Gambol Shroud, fully aware that Yang was probably about to do something incredibly reckless, but lacking the time to waste trying to talk her out of it. She tossed her sword-turned-pistol over to her partner, wrapping the other end of its ribbon securely around her arm and bracing behind one of the locked-down crates just as the brawler took a running leap out of the bay door and dropped out of sight.

The line went taught, twitching in time to the sounds of a steady volley of explosive shots, progressively knocking the Nevermore right back down into its already half-submerged comrade. Over the mixed roar of plane engine and wind, Blake swore she heard a spirited cheer, followed by something about overgrown turkeys.

Ruby spun Crescent Rose open, bracing herself near the door and firing off a volley of shots. By then it was too far to tell if they'd hit or not. "Hey Weiss, we could try iceflower."

"Absolutely not _,"_ Weiss yelled over the noise, "there's no way we're wasting Dust and ammo when they're obviously out of range."

"But it would be fun. And we _might_ hit."

"We're in a _plane._ Traveling at _more than a hundred miles per hour."_

Ruby's cape wrapped itself around her face, interrupting any attempt at a retort. The plane angled up a bit, gaining altitude, and she stumbled, catching herself on a crate next to the doorway. Her heart hammered in her chest and she laughed. Nevermores in the water. Yang hanging out of a plane. Weiss clinging to a bench, scolding her probably for almost falling out of said plane but Ruby couldn't quite hear. (The awesome-factor of those Dust-engines and their overwhelming noise rose several notches in Ruby's book.)

Their mission was off to a great start.

The intercom crackled through the howling wind, Chuck's voice all but inaudible. Ruby climbed over boxes to get to Blake, cupping a hand to her mouth, "Hey, pull Yang back in so we can shut the door."

"On it," Blake gritted her teeth and pulled hard, gaining only a few inches at a time, and losing just as many whenever she paused to shift her grip. It was much, _much_ harder to reel her partner back in with wind resistance involved. Fortunately, Yang's hands appeared at the end of the bay doors, and the brawler wasted no time in hoisting herself back inside, winking at Ruby as she trotted over to Blake with Gambol Shroud in tow. Blake squinted as she resheathed her weapon. "How did you-"

"I climbed back up the ribbon," Yang threw an arm around her scowling partner's shoulders and grinned, "Thanks for the safety line!"

"The next time you try to pull a stunt like that, I'm throwing you a parachute instead."

The cargo bay door chugged closed and the fluttering tarps and ropes went mostly still.

"Tie down those loose crates, will you?" Chuck's voice came over the intercom, "Also, for the record, I didn't think you'd actually jump out of the plane."

Ruby could _hear_ his smirk. She plunked herself down on the bench next to Weiss, who had straightened out her hair and white bolero and now sat with her arms crossed, scowling and muttering about Yang being an idiot thrill seeker. A friendly nudge to the shoulder broke the look. Weiss rolled her eyes at her partner and jerked the collar of her cloak to get it turned so the hood wasn't skewed over the dark-haired girl's left shoulder. Ruby accepted the fussing with a big, stupid grin. Crescent Rose remained partially extended, leaning against the wall beside her.

The open water of the sound gave way to a strip of bleached and sand-scoured trees and tangled rocks before the land rose up in broken cliffs and snow capped peaks. Ruby remained glued to the porthole for the first quarter hour of the flight through the mountains. She'd never seen them, except from afar, and the pristine blankets of snow topping the jagged stone was breathtaking.

Grimm steered clear; either the Nevermores from before had learned their lesson or had never gotten back out of the frigid water of the sound. Ruby wondered aloud whether Grimm could feel the cold while the rest of her team (minus Yang) shivered. By the time the plane slowed, Ruby and Blake were practically in the fiery blonde's lap while Weiss stayed on the bench by the window and lectured about how they needed to toughen up. After all winters were _much_ colder in Atlas, and of _course_ her teeth weren't chattering, it was just the vibrations from the plane.

"T-minus three minutes to landing, kiddos," Chuck announced over the intercom.

Ruby extracted herself from Blake and Yang and was at the porthole in a flurry of rose petals. "Look! Sheep!"

The animals looked like cotton balls from this height, clinging to the lower slopes ringing a modest valley. Near one edge clung a cluster of cottages shingled in colors so like the stone of the mountain Ruby might have missed them if it hadn't been for the thin wisps of smoke rising the chimneys. Neat squares of farm and grazing land patterned the rest of the valley, most of it in shades of brown, patched white with snow.

A tiny rectangle of asphalt laid out at the edge of one of the few level fields served as James Point's landing pad.

"Looks like they swept the rocks clear this time," Chuck laughed around his licorice as the entire team crammed into the cockpit doorway to watch him work the dozen levers and switches that controlled the airship. Touchdown was feather-light. He cut the engines.

"We're here!" Ruby cheered, flinging her arms in the air and almost smacking Yang and Weiss in the face. She clenched one fist and scanned the mountainside visible through the windshield. "Get ready, Grimm bats- Team RWBY is here to do some serious extermination."

"And _observation_ ," Weiss pinched the bridge of her nose between her thumb and index finger, shaking her head as Ruby ducked back into the darkened cargo hold. "Honestly."

* * *

 **A/N: Nothing like a few explosions to get a mission off to a good start, yeah? YEAH!**

 **So, Fiercesomest pretty much covered all the important technical stuff, so I'll jump in with the mushy stuff. Thank you to all of our readers, and followers, and to all the reviewers who have left kind words in our inbox for all of our other stories - we LOVE you guys, and you are all fantastic and awesome and amazing and I'm throwing internet hugs at all of you! The big squishy kind!**

 **And for all the shippers out there, bee prepared for a lack of monochrome/checkmate in this one... oh! On that note, Catnip's posting won't change at all because of this, so no worries there! Search and Destroy will update each Tuesday, and Catnip will still update on Saturdays as usual.**

 **Here's to hoping you guys have fun with this one!**

 **HUGS,  
** **Defenestrator**


	2. Getting Settled

White-gold sunlight spilled into the hold as the cargo bay door whirred open. The gears locked, dropping the steel ramp the last few feet down. It landed with a low _clunk_ against the blackened weather-worn landing pad, revealing a small group of townsfolk already waiting to board. Powerfully built men and women sporting light parkas in a veritable rainbow of colors filed in, offering passing smiles to the four huntresses that were far warmer than the icy draft breezing in from the outside as they began working on unclasping the cargo and hefting it away.

Always up for a bit of physical labor, Yang moved forward, just about to offer her aid in moving crates when a smiling elderly woman smaller even than Weiss emerged from behind one of the larger men boarding the vehicle. She came right up to the blonde brawler, clasping both of her hands in a deceptively powerful grip. "Welcome to James Point," she beamed up at Yang, sunlight catching her silvery shock of curly hair as she turned her head to smile at the rest of team RWBY. "You must be the team of huntresses I sent for."

Yang shot a curious glance at the solid hands gripping her own, canvassed with what looked like burn scars, before breaking into a wide grin. "Yes ma'am! Do you know where we can find the town leader?"

Lemon-yellow irises sparkled behind the wrinkles that formed around them as the old woman grinned right back. "You're lookin' at her." She released the startled brawler's hands as she glanced at each of the four huntresses in turn, her calculating gaze lingering for a moment on Weiss before finally settling on Ruby. "And you," she left Yang's side and strode over to the youngest person aboard the entire ship, "must be this team's leader."

"Oh!" Ruby jumped up from helping a guy in a pink coat undo a knot holding some of the cargo down so fast she almost overbalanced. "Um, you got me." she rubbed the back of her neck sheepishly.

Weiss, standing arms-crossed at Ruby's side, cleared her throat.

The younger girl remembered her manners and went into official team-leader-mode, coming alight with excitement as she extended a hand to the tiny director of James Point. "Right, I mean, I'm Ruby Rose, at your service. This is Weiss, and my sister Yang, and Blake. I hear you have some kind of bat problem?"

"That we do, Miss Rose," the old woman's right hand extended out from beneath her cream-colored parka, clasping Ruby's in a firm handshake. "Glad to meet you all. The name's Gale," her eyes scanned the cargo, taking note of the numerous damaged crates. "How was your trip? Chuck has been flying this route for us for decades," she added with a smile and a glance at the cockpit door.

"He plowed the ship straight into a pair of Nevermores," Blake crossed her arms, expression flat.

Gale blinked, then burst into laughter, bright and clear, "That _does_ sound like Chuck, the old goat. Forgive me if he gave you a scare. I'll be sure to switch out a few of his red licorice sticks with black, as punishment."

"Ha ha," Chuck said, stepping low through the doorway and removing his flight gloves. He cupped his large hand on the back of Gale's neck and stooped to place a kiss on the top of her silver hair, "Now get off my ship."

Ruby snickered, enjoying the exchange while her teammates gathered up their belongings. She'd only brought a backpack herself, plus Crescent Rose and her ammo belt, of course. Her partner, however, had a pair of sizable hard-shell suitcases and a duffle bag, all of which were snatched up by an eager young man with red cheeks and a threadbare coat. He was tall, well-proportioned, and not unhandsome. The heiress tossed her snowy hair and allowed him to carry her things while she supervised.

"All right, but only if you come see me about a round of tea and cookies before you head out again. This bucket of bolts you call a ship isn't the only thing you need to keep refueled." Gale lightly patted the old pilot's stomach, throwing him a cheeky wink before turning back to examine the team of huntresses Beacon had sent her.

The quietest of them, Blake, had just shouldered her own small black duffle bag before picking up a matching brown bag and eyeing the distracted blonde brawler standing a few feet away. A small smirk flickered across the girl's features for a split-second, just before she tossed the bag right at the brawler's head, who swatted the incoming threat to the floor, realizing what it was seconds too late. A playful glare that promised retribution flashed behind bright amethyst eyes as the brawler bent down to retrieve her thoroughly smashed bag from the floor.

One silver eyebrow raised in amusement, Gale let her eyes roam next to the girl in white, her gaze lingering for a long while on the family crest she hadn't seen in person in decades painted boldly across the girl's petite back. "Well then," she finally turned back to Ruby, "is your team up for a small hike? This weather is simply too divine to waste stuck in a vehicle."

Sheltered from the wind by the steep mountainsides, the valley stretched out before them, a wide, sun-bright bowl beneath the stark blue of the winter sky. Gold-brown and weedy, pale green grass that had sprung up in the wake of the summer's crops rippled gently in what little breeze reached them. The packed dirt path from the airfield followed the curve of the hills on its way to the village itself.

"Yeah, we're ready," Ruby hefted her bag over her shoulder. Petals scattered the cargo bay floor as she raced to the door, pausing to wait for the town leader. "Hiking is one of our specialties, after all. Right up there with killing monsters," she unslung Crescent Rose, holding her half-way extended in sniper-rifle form, "Are we going to see the bats now?"

"I should hope not," Gale laughed, thoroughly pleased at Ruby's enthusiasm, "I've been doing my best to keep them out of the town proper," she flexed a tiny, scarred arm, eliciting raised eyebrows from Blake and Yang. "But perhaps once you go down and inspect the mines..."

A muffled grunt sounded over the background noise of townsfolk shuffling crates about, coming from the young man struggling to carry three white and apparently very heavy bags at once. "...You can leave your luggage here if you like. We'll have it transported to town along with the cargo."

Blake nodded, dropping her bag at the young man's feet, barely sparing him a thankful glance before heading to stand beside Ruby. Yang followed suit, tossing her bag down beside her partner's with a grin and quick salute to the poor boy they were slowly burying in luggage.

"Don't drop them, jostle them, or stack anything on top of them," Weiss ordered, watching to make sure he didn't knock her suitcases against any of Yang or Blake's bags before she turned to follow the others up the dirt path towards the village.

"So you guys have mines?" Ruby matched her pace to Gale's and looked every which way for signs of caves. It was hard to tell what might be concealed among the tough scrub clinging to the slopes that rose up at the valley's edges. "What do you mine? Dust?"

Weiss, as heiress to Remnant's leading Dust company, scoffed, "Here? The Dust in this area is both scarce and poor in quality. You may as well mine dirt."

"Haha _Weiss_ I bet they mine something just as awesome," Yang tried to counter her teammate's dire lack of social skills with a bit of charm, hoping the elderly town leader's silence wasn't the calm before a storm.

Yellow eyes regarded the Schnee heiress for a long moment before finally returning to the dusty road ahead. "Actually," Gale swept an arm out in front of her, "these mountains contain some of the highest grade iron ore you can find in all of Remnant. Your very weapons are likely forged from it," she added with a wink and smile at Ruby.

That smile vanished as her gaze flickered momentarily back to Weiss, eyes hard as the very steel her town was renowned for. "The Schnee Dust Company has tried to buy us out numerous times, but I sincerely doubt they would treat the surrounding land with as much care," Gale gestured to the wide open fields surrounding the edges of the town, bordered in turn by a storybook sprawling forest of pine.

Blake muttered a quiet noise of agreement before throwing a quick apologetic look to Weiss.

"But," Gale folded her arms behind her back, expression softening, "I must admit, you are the first generation of the Schnee line that I've seen with any interest in a position that entails serving the people, rather than the reverse."

"Excuse me?" Weiss stopped dead on the dirt road, bristling at the backhanded compliment and the insult to her family name. "My grandfather started our company to assist in providing humanity with the means to fight Grimm after the war, not to have some backwater mmgggn mmmfff-!"

Ruby kept her hand clamped over the heiress's mouth as they scuffled. When they broke apart, Ruby had a new bruise on her shin and Weiss's cheek was smudged with grease leftover from the pre-landing once-over the younger girl had given Crescent Rose. Weiss spat repeatedly in the grass off the side of the path, wiping her face while Ruby talked fast, grimacing and making frantic 'later, I promise' motions to her, "Okay, so there's not much Dust here and we're all good guys, keeping people safe. Uh, are we sleeping in town? 'Cause we brought camping stuff if we need it, but it's not really made for snow and I'm not sure if we have cooking gear so we might have to borrow some things..."

Gale held a hand up in a gesture of peace, looking towards the cluster of polished wood and stone structures that made up her town. They were finally nearing the first building - a sizable white warehouse, doors wide open and bustling with activity, but the elder's gaze was focused elsewhere. "You four will be staying at our guest house, right over there," she pointed to a small wooden cottage at the town's edge, "near the amaranth fields." A tiny flicker of humor danced in her eyes. "Even a small 'backwater' town like this would never dream of leaving our esteemed guests to sleep out in the winter cold."

"Aw, it's not _that_ cold."

"Says the walking furnace." Blake shifted nearer to her partner, trying to use the blazing blonde as a human shield against the gentle-but-frigid breeze cutting right through her standard combat outfit. She could have punched herself for thinking shorts would be okay in the mountains - she really should have worn her outfit with pants.

James Point, instead of being laid out along the rim of the valley, rose up with the mountainside. Curved flights of stairs carved directly into the rock led to a second tier of houses whose foundations were nearly level with the roofs of those below. Much of the construction was in stone that matched the color of the nearby boulders and cliffs. Folks called friendly greetings to one another as they lugged packages or sacks of wool- things to refill Chuck's cargo bay on his flight back to Vale, while others cast inquisitive or suspicious glances at the newcomers.

A handful of kids peeked out of windows and around corners, giggling and whispering or chasing around as Team RWBY followed Gale up the street to her town's main hall. A couple of boys, brothers by the way their dark hair and eyes matched, perched in a high window and plucked at Blake's bow as she passed by.

Blake's hands instinctively flew to protect her bow just as a pair of powerful arms yanked the boys from their perch. Yang whisked the kids high in the air, one held in each hand. "Curious little guys, aren't you?" She smiled up at the pair - they couldn't have been much more than 6 or 7 years old. She set them back on the ground with a smile and patted their heads. "Remember, you have to ask a lady's permission before you go poking at them. Huntress's orders."

Weiss _hmphed_ at Yang's display and kept her eyes on their destination.

The town hall was a modest building that seemed to have received the designation simply by being in the right place at the right time. A couple of its shingles had blown off in a recent storm, and the double doors set in its front were in need of a new coat of varnish, but inside it was spacious and warm.

Ruby shuffled her feet on the black mat at the entrance to get the dirt off her boots. She had a million questions. Were they going to look at maps, or talk about how the problem started, or eat dinner, or what? Gale seemed to have a reason for bringing them here first, but if it wasn't to fight Grimm... Ruby rubbed her arm and looked to the tiny woman, all of her questions distilled into a drawn out, "So...?"

"This way," Gale ushered the team into what looked far more like a dining room than a conference room, with a rounded table of solid pine set with cups of tea at each seat and a shallow woven basket filled with small whitish cookies at its center. The floor creaked as she sat in one of the high-backed carved oak chairs and waited for the others to take their own seats before speaking again. "Firstly, thank you all for coming such a long way to lend us a hand." Her eyes fixed on Ruby, "What has Beacon already told you about this mission? I can fill you in on any missing details."

Ruby paused mid-reach, her fingertips inches from the cookie plate. She fell back, clearing her throat, "Well, they got a message from you all that you've been running into Liliac, and since they're kind of new around here-well, er, I guess they're kind of new around everywhere..." she shifted, sitting up a little straighter, "Anyway, you wanted someone to come and check it out."

"The request itself was classified as a 'search and destroy' with a minor research component," Weiss contributed, hands wrapped around the warm cup of tea before her. She otherwise ignored it in favor of bolstering her team leader's explanation. "The first encounter occurred several months ago, but attacks have been increasing in frequency without discernible cause... which seems to be a running theme with Grimm these days."

Ruby recalled the extended missions of Team CFVY and their other classmates. Reports of large packs of Grimm and resurgences of types thought long-extinct had risen in the past few years. But then, they'd been rising for pretty much all of Ruby's decade-and-a-half of life anyway. Unfazed by the harrowing trend, she perked up, "So that's why we're here! To take a look and clear things out if we can. Other than that, we are a little short on details. Did you, um," here she cringed, "Did you say you were mostly seeing the bats down in the mines?"

After the whole Grimm Rats incident, no one on the team was particularly fond of caves or underground tunnels.

"Yes," Gale subtly shifted the cookies closer to Ruby with an encouraging smile, "Our miners were following a particularly rich vein of ore, and came across a series of natural caves that lead upwards. Ever since, the miners have been seeing Liliac on an almost regular basis, in ones or in pairs, in just about every part of the mines. No matter how many I've taken down, there doesn't seem to be an end to their number. And, as you said, the attacks have been growing more frequent - more persistent. They've even started coming out as far as the town now, at night, of course."

A long drawn out sigh escaped pursed lips as Gale finally allowed herself to look wearily at her own hands clasped in front of her, "It was one thing when it was simply a matter of guarding the miners as they worked... But the whole town - I can't be everywhere at once."

"That's what we're here for!" Yang framed her blinding smile with a pair of thumbs-up.

A small smile returned to Gale's face at the familiar burst of enthusiasm from the blonde brawler. She glanced between Yang and Ruby - it was easy to see the family resemblance. "Yes. I was hoping you girls would explore the caves and the mountainside, see if you can find out where exactly these Liliac are coming from. From there, we can figure out a proper course of action."

Ruby helped herself to the cookies with gusto, pausing to swallow as Gale finished speaking. "Um, I guess this might be kind of a dumb question, but I don't know anything about mining, so... why can't you just seal up the caves? Not that living next to a big, Grimm-filled mountain would be fun or anything, but wouldn't that stop the attacks?"

"We certainly sealed up that first opening we found to the natural caves," Gale took a cookie herself and bit it in half, chewing thoughtfully. "But they just keep coming. We have no idea where from. Sealing off the caves as a whole... well, that isn't really an option. Our crops and wool trade are hearty enough to get us through the slow spells we occasionally hit with mining, but that ore really is the heart of our town's economy."

"Oh right," Economies were important. Ruby planted her fist in the palm of her hand, "Okay, so we have mysterious Grimm from a mysterious source in a mysterious mountain. Let's go see what we can find," she pushed away from the table, upsetting her cup of tea so it spilled across the table. "Whoops. Oh. Uh, well, let's go after I clean this up. Do you have some paper towels or something?"

Weiss pinched the bridge of her nose with her thumb and forefinger, shaking her head.

* * *

It only took a few minutes to clean up the spill, and with the meeting ended, plan of action decided and agreed upon, Gale sent the team on their way, down the town's winding main road to the cottage where their luggage had already been sent. By the time they reached it, the sun was already starting to dip behind the ridges of the surrounding mountains, casting long shadows over the valley. From the outside, the small building's age was apparent - missing shingles, a crack in one of the windows, rickety stairs that led to a weather-worn porch with crooked floorboards. But the inside...

"Uh, is this the same place?" Yang glanced back out the front door at the beaten down porch.

Blake rolled her eyes, smiling at the spotless, brand-new interior. Polished wood flooring and walls enclosed the cozy space, complete with a plush couch in front of a brick fireplace, a small dining area and kitchen towards the back, and stairs that led up to a loft. Blake's smile faded a bit as her mind subconsciously estimated the loft's size. Curious, she broke away from the group to head up the stairs. Yang trailed up after her, finding the Faunus rooted in place and staring.

"Hey Blake, what are you... oh."

Blake's gaze was focused on the beds. Their deep mahogany frames stood out in stark contrast to what looked like white satin sheets, each covered in a mountain of the most colorful assortment of pillows the brawler had ever seen. Yes, Yang had to agree, the beds looked absolutely luxurious. All two of them.

They were twin sized.

Ruby, her hope of immediately setting out to locate the source of the bats thwarted by both Gale and the rest of her team, made a bee-line for the kitchen. She flicked on the overhead lights and started exploring drawers and cabinets, "Hey, they left us a bunch of macaroni and cheese!"

"Oh how wonderful. That completely makes up for the way their protector insulted my entire family line," Weiss scowled at the luggage pile next to the door. Someone had stacked _everything_ on top of her suitcases. Idiots. It was the work of a moment to relocate Ruby, Blake, Yang's bags to the floor, but still.

Speaking of her teammates, the latter pair was being awfully quiet up in the loft. Weiss marched up to see what the problem was.

"What are you two..." she saw the beds. A brief mental calculation ensued, at the end of which she strode in, snatched a pillow, and stalked back down the stairs, announcing, "The couch is mine."

"So I guess we've got to go to that welcome thing tonight, but after that, we're pretty stocked," Ruby emerged from the kitchen with a big cardboard box packed with packages of hot chocolate. The marks on the box indicated that it had come over on the plane with them. To be honest, she would much rather have gotten down to business, but food was nice and you couldn't exactly turn down an invitation from the people hosting you, "Sounds like it'll be a small dinner anyway, what with the Grimm out at night and all, so... uh..."

Weiss was in the middle of collecting her bedroll and duffle bag and setting up camp on the couch.

Ruby shifted the box in her arms and leaned to look up through the railing into the loft, "Guys?"

Yang poked her head over the side, "Hey sis! You down with sharing a bed?"

Blake appeared beside her. "You can also share with me, if you don't want to be deafened by snoring."

"Hey!" Yang crossed her arms, "I do _not_ snore!"

"I've slept directly underneath you for over a year now - you snore."

"So... there's only two beds?" Ruby looked from Blake and her sister to Weiss, who was busy adjusting her bedroll on top of the cushions and who would be all alone down on the first floor if Ruby slept upstairs. The young team leader set her box of hot chocolate packets near the hearth, "That's uh... that's okay. I was thinking I'd maybe sleep down here by the fireplace." A flash of red and rose petals later, she was laying out her sleeping bag caddy-corner to the couch. Ruby gestured to the yawning mouth of the fireplace as she did so, "I mean, it's huge! And hey, remember that fireplace at Uncle Qrow's and how he'd always tell scary stories? Sounds like we kind of already have monsters prowling the night around here, but well. Blake, you probably know some great stories, right?"

"Yeah, the fireplace, _that's_ what you want to be nea-" Yang took an elbow to the face.

Blake rubbed her arm, smiling down at Ruby and Weiss as Yang uttered muffled swears on the ground, "Actually, I do happen to know a handful of frightening tales."

Ruby leaned back on her palms to look up at her teammate, "Like, little kid-level frightening, or adult-level frightening? Because I'll have you know I'm immune to kid-level."

The Faunus paused, looking thoughtful, "I've never been asked to place my stories into levels of fright before," her eyes held a curious glint, "Maybe you could help me rate them."

"Can we talk about how it's almost dark and we're supposed to be going to that welcome dinner?" Weiss broke in, brushing her hair back over her shoulder, "Not that I'm particularly looking forward to it after today, but it could be nice to meet some of the other people we'll be working with."

"Yeah, but mayyyyybe we can leave early and come back here," Ruby smoothed out her sleeping bag a little more at the corners. Her initial excitement had seen her through the introductions with Chuck and Gale, but as the shadows grew she was starting to feel more and more tapped out. "Ooh, we could leave because we have to send a report back to Beacon to let them know we've made it and all. Super important, right?"

"You haven't done that yet?" the heiress turned from pulling a somewhat heavier coat from her duffle beside the couch, "Also, you never apologized for attacking me in the road earlier."

"Oh, uh, yeah, I…" Ruby wilted under her partner's glare and mumbled apologies as she pulled out her scroll and hunched over to the window to get better reception. Weiss joined her at the windowsill to proofread.

Shortly after that, a knock sounded on the door.

Yang was already halfway down the stairs on her way to grab her bag, rubbing her jaw. As the closest to the entrance, she took it upon herself to answer whoever was knocking, swinging the door open with a smile.

A young woman with startled brown eyes stood on the rickety porch, hand still raised to knock. She wore a skirt and blue winter coat and hat, stood a couple of inches shorter than Yang, and was quick to recover herself. "Oh. Um, I'm here to escort you to dinner? If you're ready to go, that is."

"We're ready," Weiss straightened as Ruby hit send and tucked her scroll back into her pocket.

"Right," Ruby ran her hands through her hair a couple of times in an effort to make herself more presentable, but she still just wanted to hide out by the fireplace or shoot Grimm.

"Let me just..." with a devilish grin, Yang grabbed the black and brown duffle bags and tossed them upstairs at Blake, who deftly dodged both flying projectiles, much to the brawler's dismay. The half-smirking Faunus then trailed down the stairs to complete the group, and with everyone present, the team followed their guide out into the receding daylight.

* * *

 **A/N: Awkward social situation ahead. I'm sure there won't be any violence at all. Nope. Not even a little.**

 **Thanks for the reviews!**

 **\- Fiercesomest**


	3. Tavern Trials

Ruby dragged her feet out the door on the way to the tavern, casting a long look across the valley to the empty landing pad, "I guess Chuck is headed back to Beacon."

A warm hand ruffled Ruby's hair. "Aw, he'll be back for us before you know it." Yang smiled, doing her best to brighten her little sister's spirits, dampened as they often were whenever social functions were mandatory.

"Yeah," Ruby gave a half-hearted grin. Their mission was scheduled to last ten days, short enough to get them back in time to catch the start of the Vytal tournament. It might even end early if they managed to wipe out the Grimm problem entirely, but most likely they'd just study up on the new-ish species and knock the population down into a manageable range- whatever that turned out to be- and head back to Beacon. Ruby did have to admit it was nice being out of classes, even if she had to go to welcome dinners and planning sessions and all that.

While Ruby reconciled her anti-social self to her fate, Weiss fell in step with their escort. She had exchanged her light bolero for a sturdy jacket made of a stiff synthetic material. The edges of her sleeves were embroidered with her family's crest, and the lining of the garment showed red at her cuffs and collar as she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, glancing up sideways at the brown-eyed girl, all politeness and high-class charm, "Have you lived in James Point long?"

"I was born here, so yes," the girl's hands were tucked into the pockets of her coat, "and you grew up in Atlas, right? You look ready for the snow."

"Are we supposed to get some soon?"

"Probably. There's been a ring around the moon these past couple of nights," she looked up towards the rim of the valley, but the moon hadn't risen high enough to see.

Weiss waited for her to say more, but she didn't, so she tried again, "We met Gale earlier. She acts as mayor as well as your primary defense against the Grimm? That seems like a lot of responsibility for one person."

"Well, we don't typically see a lot of Grimm. The mountains shield us from most of the larger bands, and the ones that do come through have to come through the pass there," the girl pointed towards a notch between the hills at the edge of the valley, "Or survive a drop from the cliffs. You all... aren't full huntresses yet. Have you fought Grimm before?"

"Oh, once or twice," Weiss lifted her chin with a haughty expression, resting her hand on Myrtenaster's hilt. The rapier had seen her through dozens of encounters, big and small alike. She'd taken particular care servicing the weapon before they'd set off with Chuck that morning, so the steel gleamed even in the fading evening light. "What about you? I've heard that many people living outside the kingdoms are at least passable fighters."

The girl tucked her hands back into her pockets, "Um, well, I generally try to steer clear of those sorts of situations."

Ruby hopskipped to walk between Weiss and their escort, her red cloak pulled close around her shoulders with both hands, "Are we discussing parties that involve dancing and dresses and awkwardly standing by the punch bowl for hours on end? Because I am one-hundred-percent with you on avoiding those."

The other girl laughed, "Well, I'm pretty sure there aren't going to be any punch bowls at dinner. The tavern's just ahead, see?"

She nodded towards a large, low stone and mortar building at the base of the hills. Its windows were bright and a number of people stood out on the porch chatting, smoking, complaining about the cold.

"Now this is my kind of place!" Yang grinned, waving at the bundled up townsfolk giving her and Blake strange looks. The two might have been more than a little under-dressed for the weather, but only one of them was feeling the effects. Fortunately for Blake, a rush of warmth greeted the team when they finally made it past the tavern's windowless heavy oak door and stepped inside.

The tavern was already in full swing, filled to the brim with miners, farmers, sheepherders, and what seemed to be the entire town crammed into one place, the sounds of their animated chatter drowning out whatever jaunty tune was playing over the lone speaker hanging above the bar.

"We may have been undersold on the size of this gathering," Blake observed, eyeing the crowd with no small amount of trepidation. Ruby wasn't the only one who wasn't particularly fond of social gatherings.

The sharp smell of alcohol flowing freely from the taps mixed surprisingly well with the scents of freshly baked bread and spiced meats coming from the row of tables pushed together in the center of the room, laden with an unspeakable amount of haphazardly arranged dishes. Standing near the very head of the tables was Gale, who was currently waving everyone over with a smile.

"Okay, team, stay strong," Ruby balled her fists in front of herself and shrank back towards the front door, away from the crowd and the noise. Weiss caught her cape and pulled her back into the room. "Wait! Wait, do I need to fix my hair? Is it sticking up?"

"Is it ever not?" the heiress gave her a once-over. Stupid red cloak. Old black combat boots. Massive collapsible scythe-rifle at her back. Weiss sighed and brushed away the few white crumbs clinging in the creases of her cape at her shoulder. "It's fine. Just don't trip over yourself."

"Right. Sure." The younger girl bit her lip-because she _would_ trip over herself, she just knew it- but she straightened up as a heavyset man with flinty-dark eyes and dirt worn into the creases in his skin addressed her.

"So you're the huntresses, eh? Welcome to James Point," his breath smelled heavily of alcohol as he clapped a huge hand to Ruby's shoulder.

"Ow... I mean, thanks," Ruby forced a grin and vanished out from under his palm, reappearing several feet away in a dusting of rose petals, "Looks like Gale's calling, so I'd better head over that way. Uh, come on guys," she gathered up her determination and struck out through the sea of townsfolk to get to the head of the table.

Yang trailed behind, eyeing the fully stocked bar, its counters lined with rows upon rows of glass bottles filled with every earthen tone from the darkest blacks to the lightest golden ambers. She slowed to a stop and turned back, speaking low enough that she assumed no one would be able to hear her, "You guys go ahead... I'm going to check out the ba-" a ribboned hand swiftly grabbed her own, immediately halting her progress. "Aw, Blake, c'mon."

"You're underage," Blake stated simply, dragging her partner along.

"Yeah, in _Vale,_ " Yang's protest was cut short as they caught up with Weiss and Ruby, already mid-conversation with Gale.

"Word travels quickly in this town," the smile on the small town leader's face was partially hidden behind a polished steel tankard that was nearly the size of her head, "we don't get many visitors from Beacon outside of Chuck."

"Well, that's good, I guess, since Beacon's a school for monster hunters. The fewer of us you have to see, the better, right? Not that we aren't glad to be here, though the thing with the Grimm is pretty bad, er, kind of bad? But not, like, really _really_ bad, or you'd probably have more than just us out here," Ruby rubbed the back of her neck, silver eyes darting over the food and the drinks and people.

A woman with long, purple skirts spilled a plate of food that a small scruffy dog wormed through folks' legs to help clean-up. There were a couple of messy-haired kids perched up on the bar, bright with laughter, and a handful of men on the stools, singing some kind of rowdy drinking song. The room smelled like warm food and woodsmoke, and Ruby noticed the fire burning in a fireplace tucked against the back wall. Blake had wrangled Yang away from the alcohol. Weiss was scowling at someone who'd touched her coat to get her attention.

Several people were pointing to Ruby, or looking at her, talking, maybe about her. That thought had Ruby biting her lip again, but she soldiered on in the conversation with Gale, "So I guess we eat now? Or... something?"

"If you're hungry, by all means!" Gale gave Ruby a light push towards the food, motioning with her tankard towards the stack of plates on the table's corner, "Take what you like, have a seat where you wish, and a server will be along to take your drink order. On the house, of course," she added with a wink.

Blake's grasp on her partner tightened as the brawler visibly perked up at the mention of drinks. With an arched eyebrow aimed in her direction, Yang instead focused her attention on her growling stomach. Once Blake released her, Yang sidled up beside her little sister. "You know, if we shared... I bet between the two of us we could try some of every single kind of food on this table..."

Gale didn't bother to hide the skepticism in her grin, "Now there's a tall order. Our cooks pulled out all the stops for you girls," her gaze swept over the impressive assortment of delicacies, "I haven't seen them go all out like this since we celebrated landing our contract with Atlas's military."

"Well, we happen to be experts at taking down monstrous creatures, _and_ monstrous piles of food." Yang placed a hand on her hip and threw her other arm around Ruby, striking a bold pose that elicited a bought of laughter from the elderly town leader.

From the other side of the table, Blake smiled at her partner's antics before turning her own attention to the sprawling assortment of dinner choices laid out before her. She found her appetite heavily suppressed by the cold, _and_ there was a distinct lack of tuna, so she settled for grabbing a single freshly baked roll, letting the bread's lingering heat seep into her fingertips. Amber eyes scanned the premises for a warm, relatively quiet place to lounge, narrowing when they settled on the tables and chairs near the fireplace - packed, of course. The only empty table sat along the wall, directly in the line of fire of the icy blasts of air that swept in from the front door each time it opened.

Heaving a barely audible sigh, Blake resigned herself to a frigid fate, her desire to avoid crowds winning out over her desire to avoid the cold as she moved to take a seat at the forsaken table. With relative peace secured, Blake spared a glance at Weiss to make sure she wasn't getting _too_ harassed.

The clash of metal on metal had bystanders stumbling away from the heiress and a solid-built man with a blue bandanna around his forehead.

So much for that relative peace.

Talk in the tavern died as Weiss held Myrtenaster poised in guard position, ice blue eyes full of cold fury as the man hefted what appeared to be an oversized claymore fused to an undersized cannon up to his shoulder.

Taking another long drought from her tankard, Gale studied the scene for a moment. Something had clearly set off her town's chief miner - a certain vein in his neck always popped out when he got worked up. No doubt the Schnee girl had expressed her less than flattering opinion on the town's mines, or something to that effect. Setting her drink on the table of food, the old town leader headed over to the livid man, placing a small hand on an arm nearly as long as she was tall. "Gregor, I see you've met one of our guests."

"Might want to back up," he growled down at her, flicking a lighter and holding it to the fuse at the mini-cannon's base.

The next string of actions occurred within the span of several seconds. The fuse caught, and Gregor brought the claymore down in a sweeping arc, cleaving through the solid wood of the table as Weiss leapt aside. The heiress's sliver of steel nicked off the bit of burning fuse, and she immediately redirected her aim, dust chamber shifting to light blue as she lunged for the miner's arm-intent on a crippling, but non-fatal blow.

The crash of combat boots among plates preceded the rush of crimson steel that knocked Myrtenaster away. Ice crystals sprang from the floorboards where the blade touched and Weiss crashed into Ruby's back, catching herself on the girl's cloak and shoving herself backwards to get enough space to wield her rapier again.

Gregor yanked his blade free of the floor, giving Ruby a surprised once-over.

Crescent Rose dominated the space between the two would-be opponents, her curve of razor-sharp steel glinting in the warm tavern lighting. Ruby gripped the shaft of the scythe-rifle in both hands, ready to move, her rose petals dissipating across the floorboards. She held her position, "Yeah, okay. Is this something we can talk about or do we need to go outside?"

"Talk."

"Outside."

The responses, from Weiss and Gregor respectively, came at the same time. Ruby looked from the miner to her teammate to Gale, who stood behind and to the side of Gregor.

The old woman placed a hand on her chief miner's back, "A wonderful idea, both of you. Let's talk outside." She walked past the three currently in deadlock and strode towards the door, trusting they would follow. Her eyes caught Yang's for a second as she passed by the wide-eyed brawler. "Would you be a dear and keep the party going for us until we come back in?"

"Uh," Yang blinked back to reality, "Sure, of course!" She jumped up on the very same table as Ruby and gently shoved her off the side, whispering a quiet " _Nice save, sis_ ," before facing the crowd. "Hey everyone! Now that you've seen an awesome display of our mad skills, who wants to try their hand at arm wrestling a _real live Huntress!_ Winners get a kiss!" She struck a pose and flexed an arm, smiling wide as the townspeople began to cheer, children and adults alike already starting to clump together by the tableside, eager for their chance at glory.

Gale was already at the tavern's entrance, holding the door open and waiting.

Gregor attempted to stare the heiress down- he had at least a foot on her, height-wise- but Weiss didn't give an inch. The chief miner gestured to the exit with his claymore-cannon. "Ladies first,"

"Oh, after you," Weiss's mouth was set in a thin line, her tone icy, "I insist."

She didn't lower her weapon.

"Weiss, you go first," Ruby suggested evenly, adding when her partner balked, "We're the guests, y'know?"

It helped that she flourished her scythe, folding it back into its compact form in a single fluid motion, and put her arm around Weiss's shoulders mustering a worried grin that said please-don't-kill-the-people-we're-trying-to-help. At that, the heiress sighed, replacing Myrtenaster at her hip. "Fine."

The two huntresses-in-training stepped past Gale into the cold. A breeze picked up Ruby's cape, billowing it out as they adjusted to the street-lamp-dotted darkness. The chief miner followed shortly after waving off a couple of men- doubtless his employees.

"I don't know what you're playing at, Schnee," Gregor said as he ducked through the low doorway, his weapon cradled on his shoulder, "but you're not setting foot in my mines."

Gale shut the door behind them, sealing off the warmth and light of the tavern before moving to stand beside her old friend. "Gregor," her tone was gentle but edged with warning, "These girls are here to help us. Beacon wouldn't send us a huntress with ulterior motives," she leveled an even gaze at Weiss, "would they, miss Schnee?"

"How should I know?" Weiss scowled, her posture rigid. The paperwork and release forms they'd signed when accepting the missions were peppered with check-boxes for alerting instructors to physical or medical conditions, but had been devoid of any labeled 'ulterior motives'.

"See?" Gregor jabbed a finger at the defiant girl, "She's probably spying for her father. Is that it? Didn't get enough info from the last suit-and-tie we sent packing?"

"Yes, right, because clearly dedicating _years of one's life_ to studying and learning to fight Grimm is the most efficient way to learn the trade secrets of a tiny nowhere mining operation," the heiress shot back, temper flaring.

"Weiss," Ruby caught the older girl's eyes and stole a motion from Blake, holding her hand at a level above her head and then moving it down to her chest. _Take it down a little_ was the message. To Gale and Gregor, she said, "We really are just here to take care of the bat issues."

Gale's lips were pursed as she stared Weiss down in the face of yet another insult to her hometown's very heart. Backhanded though it may have been, her compliment to Weiss when they'd first met had been sincere. Unfortunately, however good the girl's intentions might have been in choosing the path of a Huntress, it seemed she still possessed that legendarily acerbic Schnee temperament. Gale crossed her arms. In the interests of diplomacy and good relations, she knew she should step in, and yet... In the interest of getting a better read on these huntresses, she held back, giving Gregor space to speak his mind.

He addressed Ruby first, "You can help. She stays out," the chief miner set his jaw and stepped forward so he loomed tall and broad-shouldered over Weiss, his voice low and brimming with threats, "And if I find you've been talking to any of my men, I'll pitch you out the east pass so fast it'll make your speedy little friend here dizzy. Got it?"

Ruby held an arm across Weiss's chest, both shielding and barring action. The heiress glared daggers up at Gregor but said nothing.

Gregor spat on the porch step without breaking eye contact and strode back into the tavern, his boots heavy on the floorboards as he burst through the door and made a beeline for the barside.

Yang glanced up from her current match, eyes narrowing at the lone figure. Where were Ruby and Weiss? Still with Gale? The crowd around her didn't pay much mind, focused as they were on her current opponent, a handsome young man with a lanky build, dark skin, and even darker hair. Probably a local heart throb, if she had to guess. He seemed nice, so she held him in an even stalemate, giving him a few more seconds of false hope before slowly and relentlessly pressing his arm into the table.

More raucous cheering erupted and people patted the poor boy on the back as Yang scanned the tavern for _any_ of her teammates, finally spotting her partner at a table by the wall. She rolled her eyes and smiled at the sight of Blake sitting alone, of course, quietly reading - where had she even gotten a book? - and nursing a hot drink. One of these days, she was going to teach that girl to party properly.

"Um, miss Huntress?"

Yang whirled her head around, blinking in surprise at her newest opponent. A small girl with lopsided pigtails who couldn't have been much more than 6 or 7 beamed up at her with piercing brown eyes, wide and earnest. She stared in awe for a few moments before finally working up the courage to speak again. "When I grow up, I wanna be a huntress like you."

The brawler's heart seized - this was it, she was going to die - she'd always had a soft spot for little kids and this one was _really cute._ "Well then," she grinned, taking the little girl's hand in her own, "Show me what you've got!"

If the crowd had been cheering loudly before, they were almost deafening now, and Yang put on the biggest show of her life, contorting her face in all manners of concentration and strain, nearly pinning the young girl's arm once or twice before finally relenting and letting her arm slam back into the table, defeated. It was worth it for the little girl's blinding smile of surprise as she threw her tiny arms in the air in victory.

"I _did_ it! I win a kiss!"

"You sure did!" Yang stood and bent low, placing a gentle kiss to the top of the girl's head before pulling back and ruffling her hair. "You're gonna be great, kid," she winked.

As the little girl scampered back to her parents and a new opponent took her place, Yang glanced back over to Blake to find the Faunus already staring in her direction, a single brow arched over a small smirk, one that remained even as amber eyes turned back to her book.

Outside the tavern, Gale quietly watched the door slam shut behind Gregor. In hindsight, she probably should have kept him from meeting the Schnee heiress as long as possible, but if it hadn't happened now, it would only have happened later, perhaps when she wasn't around to keep him from attacking the girls that had been sent to help them.

Weiss shoved Ruby's arm aside, storming down the steps and into the darkened street, "I'm going back to the cabin."

"Weiss..." Ruby started, but her partner didn't turn. The young team leader sighed, rubbing her neck as she turned to Gale. Her silver eyes dropped. "Well, uh, sorry about that. Sorry for my half, anyway. You... all really don't like the Schnee family, huh?"

Gale mirrored Ruby's sigh, watching as Weiss made her retreat before shifting her gaze to the downtrodden young team leader still standing before her. "No, I can't say that we do." She frowned, wishing she had something positive to say, as the red-cloaked girl really did seem to care about her teammate, but truth was truth. "That family has been nothing but trouble since they first approached us about acquiring the mine decades ago. What started as perfectly civil negotiations eventually twisted into intimidation plays, petty scare tactics, underhanded threats..." The corner of her mouth lifted just a hair. "...That's the short version of things, anyway."

"Gee, yeah, that does sound pretty bad," Ruby searched the darkened street in the direction her teammate had gone. There had to be a way to fix things-after all, the stuff Weiss's family had done wasn't her fault, was it?- but she wasn't sure how to make it right. She grimaced, "You know, if you really don't want us here, I'm pretty sure we could swap out for another team. It might take a little while to get it all straight, but..."

"That's kind of you..." Gale paused, choosing her words with care, "But, I've always believed a child shouldn't be bound by the deeds of their family." Brushing an errant snowflake from her sleeve, Gale stepped forward and reached up to place a surprisingly warm hand on Ruby's shoulder. "I'll talk to Gregor. But for now, go ahead and start your search with the mountainside, instead of in the mines..."

"Yeah, okay. We can do that," Ruby rubbed her arms under her cloak. Her breath misted in the air in front of her face. "So I'm going to check in with the others real quick, but then I should probably go after her, so... uh... thanks for the food? Those cheese pastry things were awesome. Sorry for jumping on the table."

Gale nodded, giving the young girl a small smile, "It wouldn't be the first time those tables have seen the soles of a shoe." With that, she turned and slipped back through the tavern door, holing it open behind her.

"Oh, whew, haha, I feel way better now," Ruby ducked through the door, sheepish and intent on finding her teammates.

Yang was sure easy to spot- well, it was hard to see through the crowd but where else would she be? (Plus, who else had glowing gold hair? Pretty safe bet that the answer was 'no one'.) The raucous cheers and fist pumps from the spectators signaled some kind of victory, probably on her sister's behalf. Good old Yang.

In any case, she was busy, so the young team leader glanced around for Blake instead, nearly jumping out of her skin when she spotted her seated at the table literally two inches away. Ruby flailed her arms, "Whoa! Blake. Hi," she brought a fist to her mouth to clear her throat, spirits dropping to her boots as she explained, "Weiss kind of sort of... got banned from the mines and from talking to mostly everyone in town. So I'm going to go."

Blake glanced up from her book with a darkened expression - she had suspected something was up when the visibly strained group of four had passed her to leave the tavern, but the roar of the crowd around Yang had made it impossible to hear anything being said outside. For a brief moment, she considered offering to join Ruby, eager to leave the crowded tavern, but a smile and wave from Gale passing by made her falter. It really wouldn't make the best impression to have all of them but Yang skip out on the party being thrown in their honor. With a resigned sigh, Blake nodded, "OK. Go keep Weiss company. You can tell us what happened later..." she glanced at the crowd and smiled as another cheer surged through the air, "Yang and I will stick around and keep up appearances. We'll head back when the festivities die down."

"Sounds good. Maybe sneak us some food if there's any leftover?" the silver in Ruby's eyes lit up a little, but only a little and it faded quickly. She gave a last wave and slipped back out the door into the quiet night, taking a breath through her teeth to steel herself for the inevitable storm that was Weiss. She gathered her cloak around herself, "Just... gotta go do some damage control. No problem."

* * *

 **A/N: Ah, yes, definitely no problem, Weiss is just giving Ruby a chance to polish her damage control skills of course. ;3**

 **Sorry this chapter is a bit late, I was helping Fiercesomest with her taxes and oh my goodness self employment taxes are a nightmare everyone please send her hugs and well wishes because wow o_o**

 **Stay tuned for the controlling of damage and shenanigans!**

 **HUGS,**  
 **Defenestrator**


	4. Splinters and a Dose of Hard Apple Cider

The streets were deserted, lit sporadically by the low-burning lamps. Grit crunched under Ruby's soles as she traversed the empty pathways, half cobbled, half packed earth or worn stone. Single and double-story buildings loomed over her in black silhouette for a while, but at the edge of town the sky spread overhead unbroken, spanning the open space between the mountains. The night air was clear as crystal, the stars as bright and pure as snow sprinkled across the night. Ruby tilted her head back as she walked, a hand clasped to her chest as she drank in the sight.

It gave her a familiar feeling, an expanding, a stirring of the soul, like she could look out into the sky forever. So what if their first day in James Point hadn't gone exactly according to plan? They hadn't had much of a plan anyway, and sorting out what had gone on at the tavern couldn't be too hard. They were here to fight Grimm, after all, to keep this place safe so people could sit out at night and watch the stars and broken, haloed moon and not have to worry about baddies or monsters or anything.

Ruby walked backwards, fingers intertwined behind her head to give her neck a rest, briefly wondering what the view would be like from the mountaintops. Probably they could make a trip. It would be completely worth it.

Her musings came to an abrupt end as she tripped onto the cabin's porch steps.

"Ouch, ow," she cringed, clutching her head with one hand and her back where she'd hit the edge of one of the steps with the other.

The front door opened and a bar of light fell across the weathered floorboards. "Ruby? What are you doing?"

"Oh, uh, hey Weiss," Ruby grabbed the railing and pulled herself up, still rubbing her head. Her partner was frowning, a hand still on the doorknob. Light caught in her hair white hair. Her coat lapels were pulled close. She had a bundle under one arm. Ruby let go of the splintery railing and dusted her palm on her cloak, "Are you going somewhere?"

The heiress dodged her eyes, "I... thought I might keep a lookout. Over the town."

"By yourself?"

"Well, the rest of you will need your energy to deal with the Liliac in the mines, right?" she shut the door behind herself and became suddenly interested in straightening the cuffs of her coat sleeves.

Ruby stilled her hand to catch her attention, "Weiss, we wouldn't go without you. I mean, come on. We're partners," the older girl turned away with a small growl. Ruby kept on, coaxing, "It takes more than a random angry miner guy to split up Team RWBY."

"How about a random angry miner and the head of the town?" Weiss grumbled, shifting her bundle- which Ruby discerned as her bedroll- under her arm.

"Nope," Ruby grinned.

Weiss didn't say anything. Her brow was still creased, so Ruby decided tried a different tack.

"So... I just banged my head on the porch and I have like five splinters," the young team leader held up the hand she'd touched the railing with. "Mind if we go inside and check out the first aid kit?"

This time the heiress sighed. "Fine. But I still don't see how we're going to be allowed into the mines."

"We've got time to figure it out. I mean, there's the whole outside of the mountain to check out. We can just do that first," Ruby held the door for her partner, this time careful of the rough wood. "Keeping watch is a great idea, though. Gale did say they were starting to see Grimm in town. Maybe we can take shifts."

"Probably they already have some kind of rudimentary alert system," Weiss shed her coat and scarf and gloves and strode to the couch to drop off her bedroll. "At least, I can't imagine one person looking after the town day and night. It's a little late now, but we could ask about it tomorrow."

She dug in Ruby's bag for the red first aid case and fished a sewing kit with a silver buckle out of her own.

"Yeah," Ruby sat on the raised hearth, examining her palm. She snatched it to her chest as Weiss approached, "Um. Why are you holding a needle? We don't need a needle, do we?"

The heiress rolled her eyes, "Just let me see."

* * *

The night in the tavern wore on; bright, spirited, _tiring,_ and absolutely thrilling. Yang had long since lost track of both the time, and the count of how many arm wrestling matches she'd accepted. The bear of a man currently grappling with her had to be... the 22nd? Maybe the 57th? Concrete numbers aside, she had to have taken on _at least_ half the tavern at this point. Yang's eyes narrowed, a slight twinge hidden behind her wild grin. She'd already switched back and forth between her arms a few times over, but each victory took a little more effort than the last, and her overworked muscles were finally beginning to protest the abuse. It probably didn't help that her stomach had growled so long and so often that it finally tired itself out and gave up on growling altogether.

Still, the very leader of the town they were here to assist had tasked her with keeping the people entertained and by Dust that's exactly what she was _going to do._ A low growl of effort slipped through her teeth as Yang finally slammed her latest opponent's arm to the table, throwing the tavern into another round of cheers. Despite his gruff appearance, the man was surprisingly amicable in defeat, and he simply laughed, shaking Yang's hand for only a second before lumbering out of the way as someone very small took his place sitting across from her.

"How about you let an old woman try her luck?"

Gale flexed her hands, leaned forward in her seat, and placed an elbow on the table, ready and waiting, eyes alight with amusement.

Yang stared openly, intrigued. Was Gale offering her an easy win? Then again, none of the townspeople seemed surprised at their elderly town leader's behavior, and she knew the dangers of underestimating an opponent. She suddenly recalled their first meeting in the cargo ship - the sheer strength hidden in those deceptively small hands... Hadn't Gale mentioned being the one in charge of guarding miners from the Liliac? Yang's face lit up.

"Yeah! Of course!" Yang reached out and gripped the awaiting small, scarred hand in her own, feeling strong fingers gripping right back. The entire tavern buzzed with energy as the server who had appointed himself referee about 6 matches ago began the countdown, throwing his arm down to signal the match's start.

An immediate explosion of force on Gale's part forced Yang to respond in kind, leaving them in a temporary stalemate. The two stared each other down, matching smiles gracing their faces as they held each other in check. Gale was strong, no doubt about it, but Yang was still holding back. A smirk began to works its way across the blonde's features as she gradually increased the pressure, feeling the older woman's arm start to give. She blinked when Gale smirked right back.

In the span of a second, Yang felt something surge through her fingertips and all the way up to her shoulder, making those muscles go utterly limp. Her arm slammed into the table in defeat. Gale stood, extending her hand with a smile. Yang stood as well, stealing an utterly bewildered glance at her own arm which, as she shook it out a bit, was now apparently back to normal. She reached out to shake Gale's hand, curiosity piqued.

"Well, I guess you win a kiss!..." Yang rubbed the back of her head, "Uh, do you want it?"

Gale laughed and shook her head, "What I want is for you lot," she swept her eyes over the townspeople gathered around them, half-smiling, "to let this poor girl take a break!" The crowd took the gentle scolding well, letting loose one final cheer before dispersing.

Two small steps brought Gale around the small table to smile up at the huntress who was staring down at her with unguarded interest, lips already parting, likely to ask about how she'd won. "Get something to eat, dear. There's going to be live music shortly, so go relax, have a drink, and enjoy the show."

The curiosity shining in Yang's eyes instantly flipped to enthusiasm at the mention of food _and_ drinks - the perfect method of distraction for a hungry, thirsty brawler. Yang saluted, "Yes ma'am!" and made a beeline for the table laden with food.

Minutes later, a plate buried under a mountain of meats, vegetables, and just about everything else slammed down next to Blake, followed closely by a beaming blonde brawler. "Hey Blake!" Yang took the seat beside the quiet Faunus and attacked her food with a vengeance without waiting for a reply, pausing to glance at the mug sitting by her partner. "Whatcha drinking?"

The Faunus remained silent, focused intently on her book. Yang blinked, pausing in the middle of stuffing her face. She swallowed a mouthful of what was probably chicken. "Blake?"

"Apple cider."

Yang grinned at the delayed response. Her partner was probably at a really important part of the chapter or something. "Oh man I haven't had apple cider in ages! Especially hot." She went right back to her food just as one of the tavern's servers came up to their table to greet her.

"Evening, hon. Bang up job on those matches. What'll you have to drink?"

The brawler smiled around her monumental mouthful of potatoes, forcing them down to answer. "Thanks! I'll have... hm..." Yang glanced at the bar, torn. The location had her leaning towards a nice cold drought, but the weather had her leaning towards something hot. She glanced once more at her partner's steaming mug, eventually motioning to it. "I'll have what she's having."

The server nodded and smiled, walking away in time to the music that had just started up. The rhythm was catchy, and Yang found her feet tapping the floor of their own accord. Blake however, remained motionless. Yang side-eyed her partner. "So... whatcha reading?"

She waited, watching as Blake's eyes slowly drifted from side to side, nothing like the quick precise movements she was used to seeing when the Faunus devoured a piece of literature.

"A book."

Amethyst eyes rolled. "Real descriptive there, partner." The brawler's attempt at a second round of teasing was cut short when the server returned with her drink. Yang waved at the retreating woman with a smile, and took a sip of her apple cider. Her very clearly _alcoholic_ apple cider.

"Blake."

Amber eyes slowly, _slowly_ drifted up to meet amethyst. It was clear from this angle just how glassy those amber eyes were.

"How many of these did you drink?" Yang held up her mug.

Blake stared, brows furrowed in concentration. "...I lost count. It kept refilling."

It took everything in the brawler's power not to crack a smile at the very slight slur that became evident when her partner tried to speak more than two words at a time. "And how are you feeling?"

The Faunus frowned, clearly taking a moment to compose a coherent sentence before speaking. "I believe my senses have been compromised."

It was no use - Yang snorted behind her hand, breaking into a fit of giggles at the inebriated girl attempting to glare daggers at her.

"It's not funny," Blake's half-hearted glare slipped down to her book, "I can't focus on the words."

"Oh _no_ you can't _read_ at a _party~_ " Yang nudged her partner's shoulder, stifling another snort of laughter when the playful gesture nearly knocked the Faunus out of her chair. "Jeeze, you lightweight," a weighty arm snaked around Blake's shoulders to keep her steady. "What am I gonna do with you, huh?"

Blake's retort was cut short by a familiar voice ringing out from the other side of their table.

"Miss huntresses!"

Amber eyes blinked and amethyst eyes brightened at the sight of the small girl who first defeated Yang, the fringes of her bangs barely reaching the height of the tabletop.

"May I take your picture?" She all but whispered, glancing repeatedly at Blake, but keeping her face hidden behind a camera roughly half the size of her head.

The brawler's heart just about exploded at the sight, reminded of her own little sister's initial hesitation when being forced to approach Blake their first night at Beacon. She tightened her hold on her unwittingly intimidating partner, smashing their faces together to look as silly as possible. "Of _course_ you can!"

"YAY!" The little girl stamped her feet in excitement, then glanced left and right, eyebrows raised, "Where is the red huntress?" she tilted her head, "and the white huntress?"

"Oh those two? They're just..." Yang pulled back a bit to look around the tavern, fully expecting to find the pair standing around or sitting at a table... somewhere... She was certain once she'd seen Gale that everyone had come back inside.

"Uh... they're..."

"Secret mission." Blake ignored Yang's inquisitive glance, squishing their cheeks back together and offering their young photographer a severely lopsided smile. "Cheese."

With a giggle and a blinding flash, the little girl snapped her picture and fled.

Yang disentangled herself from her partner, trying in vain to rub the residual light out of her eyes. "Wait, so where _are_ Ruby and Weiss?"

"At the cabin."

Blonde tresses flew in an arc as Yang whirled on her partner, both eyebrows and the pitch of her voice rising with each word she spoke. "They went back? Alone? _Together?_ " Her mind started to race, instantly jumping to the absolute worst possible scenarios, the majority of which involved the small twin beds, or that warm, inviting couch by the fire place, or the-

"Weiss got banned."

Yang's imagination ground to a blessed halt. "...From the tavern?"

"The mines."

" _What?_ Why?"

Blake shrugged, listing forward from the motion, stopping only when Yang reached out to hold her steady. The brawler's brows were furrowed in thought. "...Did she insult someone again?" Gale hadn't seemed angry about anything during their match... Maybe that big burly guy?

Blake shrugged again, her head and the bow atop it beginning to droop.

"Well aren't you a fount of useful information," Yang patted Blake's shoulder, smiling at her partner's attempt to mumble something back. "Come on," she gathered up Blake's book, stealing one last glance around the tavern as she stuck a napkin between the pages to serve as a rudimentary bookmark, "let's uh, let's somehow get you back to the cabin too. Can you walk?"

Blake's bow twitched as her head snapped up, eyes hard with determination. "Yes." She stood, gripping her chair's back for support, took one step, and immediately went down, rolling out of her fall into a crouch. People standing nearby began to _ooh_ and _ahh_ and clap, mistaking the tumble for an intentional display of acrobatic prowess. Yang joined in the applause, earning a grumpy scowl from her partner. "Give me a hand."

With the slightest of smirks sneaking across her face, Yang helped her partner to her feet, doing her best to pass it off as a friendly side-hug to the crowd. "I would say you owe me for this, but free hugs the whole walk home is more than enough."

Amber eyes rolled in response, and the pair bid their farewells to the townspeople, heading out into the cold.

* * *

Ruby lay full-length on the couch, her groans muffled by the cushions. Who knew that getting splinters out could hurt so much? Especially when you had to _dig_ for them. With needles. And there was blood.

A teeny tiny speck of red showed through the bandaid at the edge of her palm.

"Stop whining," Weiss flicked her white side-tail back over her shoulder, snapping the first aid case shut. "And get off the couch. It's still mine, even if I won't be using it the entire night."

Ruby popped up onto her elbows. "Oh right. Are we going now? Let's leave a note. Did we decide to set up in that bell tower?"

"It was your idea," Weiss said. They had discussed optimal stake-out locations during the splinter extractions. Ruby had a tendency to be squeaky when she was talking and experiencing pain, but that didn't detract from the quality of her contributions.

The bell tower in question was set up on second-tier of James Point. It stood a full story taller than the surrounding buildings- from there, Ruby and Weiss would be able to look out over most of the town.

Ruby swung her legs over the side of the couch, "So... yes to the bell tower?"

"Yes to the bell tower." Weiss began re-layering, starting with a light sweatshirt, a scarf, insulated white leather gloves.

"I thought you said Atlas was colder than here," Ruby poked at the heiress's cloak, bundled on the arm of the couch. "You look ready for the snowpocalypse."

"Please. This is my autumn gear." Weiss pulled her hair free of her scarf, "Do we need anything else? I packed granola bars."

"Ooh, hang on," Ruby zipped to the hearth to retrieve the box of hot chocolate packets. "Be right back."

A trail of rose petals fluttered towards the kitchen. Weiss called after her, "Also put on another layer. _Not_ a T-shirt."

"My cloak is warm," the younger girl's voice countered.

"Do you own gloves? We're in the mountains," the heiress shot back, collecting her bedroll and other supplies, "You've already complained about splinters, I do not need you complaining about the cold."

* * *

Ruby hiked her and Weiss's bedrolls up under her arm to get a better  
grip as she gazed thoughtfully at the sky.

"I see a kind of jagged-y flower," she announced.

Weiss grabbed Ruby's hood and pulled her back onto the path, "I see the moon."

"Ooh, hey, this way it's a bunny made out of stained glass, except  
it's glowy and white instead of all colored."

"I still see the moon."

"You suck at this game, Weiss," Ruby hugged the bundle of sleeping  
gear in front of herself, frowning, "Were you even looking?"

"Why would I?" the heiress didn't break stride on the uneven dirt path  
leading in to town, "I know what the moon looks like."

"Ugh, that's not the point," Ruby hopskipped to catch up, "You're  
supposed to use your imagination."

"How about you 'imagine' that I'm good at this game."

"Weeeeeiiisss..." the young team leader whined. She leaned hard into  
her partner's shoulder, inadvertently pushing the older girl towards  
the ditch.

"Ruby..." Weiss growled, shoving back to regain the path.

Beneath the very same shattered moon, two figures stood at a dark crossroads lit by a single streetlamp. Yang allowed herself a small sigh, one arm wrapped around Blake's middle, the other bent at her side, hand on her hip as she stared down yet another four-way path.

"I really should have paid better attention on the way here. Everything looks different at night, you know?" And it probably didn't help that she was being distracted by a certain inebriated Faunus hanging off her side.

An indistinct mumble from her partner tickled Yang's ear. Amethyst eyes glanced down at the raven-haired head resting on her shoulder. Blake's steps _had_ been dragging more and more with each passing minute. All that accidental alcohol - Blake had _insisted_ she thought it was regular apple cider - was probably starting to finally take its toll. She might have to just go ahead and _carry_ her if this kept up.

"Hey, you still with me, partner?" Yang waved a hand in front of Blake's face, jerking it back at the last second when her partner chirruped and made to swipe at her fingers. "... _Oh._ " The brawler bit back a smile. If this was what she thought it was... Just to be sure, she stuck her hand out again, smiling like mad when Blake batted her wiggling fingers away. There was no doubt - she had only seen Blake act like this once before - while hopped up on pain killers. "That's a no, I'm guessing, then?"

As if to answer the question, Blake happily pressed her face into the massive tangle of gold before her, letting loose a low purring rumble as she nuzzled Yang's neck. Heat exploded through the brawler's face in a crimson blush, drawing the the warmth-seeking Faunus up to rub their cheeks together with another round of contented purring.

Stupid grin firmly in place, Yang made a not-even-half-hearted attempt to push her partner away. "Oh, oh Blake _no_ \- that's _way_ too cute." She ceased her not-quite-struggle moments later when she heard voices in the distance coming from one of the other darkened paths leading to the crossroad.

 _Finally,_ someone she could ask for directions.

The two figures that stepped into the circle of light pooling down from the street lamps hanging overhead were unexpectedly familiar.

"Weiss?... Ruby!" Yang smiled and waved, confused, but happy to see the pair nonetheless. Had they come back to retrieve herself and Blake? After pushing Blake's hair out of her face to see a bit better, her eyes quickly darted between the heiress, her sister, then landed on the bedrolls in her sister's arms. Her smile slipped several notches.

"Yang!" Ruby juggled the bedrolls back under one arm so she could throw a hand up in greeting. A second later, she skidded to a halt in front of the pair, grinning, cloak swirling at her heels. "We left you guys a note."

Weiss followed, a thermos dangling from her hand. She scowled and picked rose petals out of her hair, "Ugh, Ruby, don't do that when I'm downwind. Honestly." she noticed Blake all but draped upon Yang's shoulder. Weiss frowned, "... is she purring?"

"Oh, uh," Yang tried once more to push Blake's face away, but only succeeded in shoving her partner back down into nuzzling her neck. "...Long story short, yes. Yes she is. More importantly," she placed her free hand on her hip, the smirk on her face partially hidden by Blake's hair, "Where are you two sneaking off to? In the dead of night? With your bed rolls?"

Weiss glanced at Ruby and back at Yang, flushing and scowling at Yang's insinuation. Before she could set her straight, Ruby broke in cheerfully.

"We're going to the bell tower," the young team leader struck an awkward, bedroll-hindered martial arts pose, "It was Weiss's idea- taking turns watching for Grimm in case they try to bother the town."

"As Ruby said, we left you a note back at the cabin," Weiss crossed her arms, attention shifting to the abnormally affectionate Blake. "That's not normal."

"Oh it's not so bad," Yang casually waved a hand, "Actually, it's really-EEE," she whipped that free arm behind her, pulling Blake's icy fingers from where they had snuck underneath the hem of her shirt, " _cold, jeeze._ " Yang gripped Blake's hand, both to keep it warm, and to keep it from wandering elsewhere. "Uh, she's just cold, right Blake?" The purring only grew louder. "...Aaaand she might have had a little too much to drink. Nothing a good night's sleep won't cure!"

Yang glanced between Weiss and Ruby, her smirk replaced with a regular smile for the time being. "So you're going to give the town's watchmen a hand then? That's a great idea!" Her eyes traveled down to Blake, who seemed to have found the perfect spot buried in golden hair and had stopped moving altogether, "We uh... might not be able to join you, though."

"Because you got Blake drunk," Weiss shut her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger, "On our first night here. Perfect."

Yang rolled her eyes. "Hey now, for once I had _nothing_ to do with this," she motioned to Blake, who's purring had been replaced by a light snore, "Apple cider is tricky business you know. Doubt she even knew what she was drinking... And anyway that's rich, coming from the girl who somehow got herself _banned_ from the mines before we could even set foot in them," amethyst eyes narrowed at Weiss, "What happened anyway? Did someone mess with you? Is there someone I need to go punch in the face?"

"I take it you missed that whole scene with the neanderthal and his claymore-cannon back at the tavern," Weiss snapped, "which was not my fault." Noticing the two sisters' skeptical looks she added, "Not entirely. He drew first."

"Apparently these miner guys don't really like the... uh... well, anyone related to the Schnee Dust Company. So..." Ruby gestured towards Weiss's spotless white, insignia emblazoned get-up.

The heiress tossed her hair over her shoulder, feigning indifference while she avoided the others' gazes.

"Yeah that guy didn't seem too fond of you - but Schnee or not, calling people things like 'neanderthal' probably isn't going to help your case much," Yang smirked suddenly, "...you didn't actually call him that to his face, did you?"

"Of course not. He was insulting my family," Weiss crossed her arms and lifted her chin, "I was much more creative."

Ruby gave a nervous laugh, making a mental note to talk to Weiss about her people skills sometime. For the team's sake. Then again, maybe she could just ignore it for a while and everything would just work itself out. For now she scuffed her feet on the cobbles, clutching her cloak closed with her free hand, "Right, so, do you need a hand getting back to the cabin or anything?"

"A hand, some directions," the heiress allowed the edge of her lips to quirk up at the way Blake was clinging to Yang, her dark head buried in the blonde's tangle of gold hair, "a chaperone, perhaps?"

Yang made a dismissive noise, trying to keep up her smirk through the blush creeping across her face. "Yeah right, if anything it's _you_ two who need a chaperone." With a slight shift of her shoulders and hips, the brawler secured Blake against her side. "Lucky for you, my hands are full at the moment." More-than-half-dragging her partner at this point, Yang started towards the path Ruby and Weiss had come from.

"Just kick her if she gets too feisty, sis!" She called back to Ruby, pausing a few feet away at the edge of the circle of light shining down from he street lamp. After staring down the darkened street for a second, she looked back over her unoccupied shoulder. "Actually... some directions would be nice."

Weiss reigned in her snark about walking _away_ from the giant mountain looming over the town enough to point her down the street that led pretty much straight to the cabin while Ruby drew maps in the air and rattled off semi-helpful landmarks such as 'the house with candy cane stripes down one corner' or 'this weird post that might have been a tree or a fence'.

"Also don't touch the railing. It's kind of splintery," Ruby added, holding her slightly injured palm up as evidence.

"OK. Take this road until I find candy canes, tree-fences, and splinters. Gotcha. Thanks guys! No funny stuff while you're out!" With a cheeky smile and a wave, Yang and Blake disappeared into the night.

* * *

 **A/N: Thank you for the tax-season encouragement! It turned out I messed stuff up and I have to try again. T_T (On the plus side I might owe less money. Ha! Well, we'll see.) Also, thanks for the reviews- makes our day, seeing them come up.**

 **Also, remember how it took a while for Recovery to get serious?**

 **Stay tuned, guys, stay tuned. In the meantime, hope you enjoy the character interactions,**

 **-Fiercesomest**


	5. First Watch

Ruby and Weiss walked in relative silence. The uneven cobbles and the incline of the street made it essential for Ruby to concentrate on where she was stepping if she didn't want to wind up sprawling in the street.

Weiss had a measured stride that never seemed to falter, even when the smooth stone switched to cobbles switched to gravel. Even in _heels_. How did she do that? Ruby imagined Weiss practicing walking in varied terrains for _hours_ because really how else would you be able to keep from tripping and killing yourself in shoes like that?

"Why are you staring at me?" Weiss asked, derailing Ruby's train of thought.

"Oh, uh, just, you're really good at walking," she blurted. The heiress looked at her like she'd grown another head. "In heels, I mean."

Weiss steered them around a corner, ice blue eyes glancing up at the bell tower showing over the roofs of the houses. "You don't have to try to make me feel better."

"I... don't?" It took Ruby a second to shift gears from random-observation mode to team-leader mode, "I mean, are we talking about the, um. The family name, thing?" Ruby counted Weiss's silence as a yes. "You're not like those business guys, whoever they were. The ones who tried to do whatever."

Weiss made a sound that could have qualified as a snort if it weren't so genteel, "You're extraordinarily articulate tonight, Ruby."

"You know what I mean," Ruby shifted the bundle of bed rolls to her right arm so her left could have a break. "We're the good guys. We'll show 'em."

They stopped outside the doors to what was in fact a bell _tower._ Three stone-slab stairs led to a pair of double doors at the base of the structure. Ruby perked up, "I'll get the door."

It was unlocked. The hinges creaked like something out of a horror movie. All the hairs on the back of Ruby's neck stood on end as she stepped into the quiet blackness. "Hello?"

Her voice echoed off the stone.

"You dunce, what if someone had been sleeping in here?" Weiss followed her through the door, activating one of her sword's Dust chambers, repelling the pitch dark with a soft blue glow. "This could have been someone's house."

" _I_ want to live in a tower," Ruby breathed, looking up at the iron staircase that spiraled along the interior wall, winding its way out of the reach of Myrtenaster's light. "Maybe we could all live in a tower."

"Let's not," Weiss started up, stepping around bundles that smelled strongly of sheep's wool, holding her narrow blade out before her to light the way.

"Why? It would be fun," Ruby stuck close behind her, trailing a hand over the fine metal work. Their footsteps echoed in iron whispers. "It wouldn't have to be a big empty tower like this, though the weapons are kind of a nice touch."

Swords, spears, a two-pronged bladed monstrosity with jagged edges and some kind of chain in the middle. (Ruby wasn't even sure how that one could be used. Maybe it couldn't- hence the display). They hung along the walls in all their antiquated glory.

Three stories is a long way in the dark, in the dead of night, but finally they reached a trap door at the top. Ruby set their bed rolls down. She wrapped her hands in her cape so as to avoid getting any more splinters for the night and lifted the door while Weiss crouched, sword at the ready, just in case.

All was quiet, deserted. Discarded crates and odd-shaped bundles of cloth lay tucked against the wall encircling the belfry.

"Any bats in here...?" Ruby poked her head under the rim of the giant bell dominating the top of the tower. Inside, it was dark and cold. Her voice echoed. She ducked back out, straightening, "Guess not."

Weiss appraised the bell for a moment. Brass, probably. At least ten feet in diameter. She stepped back, keeping Myrtenaster clear of the instrument, "Given the high chance that this is the town's emergency signal, we'd probably better-"

One of the bundles behind her _moved_. Ruby turned just in time to see Weiss pitch backwards into a shadowy tangle of limbs. In an instant, Ruby was spinning Crescent Rose open, prepared to take on whatever had been hiding in the tower- but unprepared for the enormous _CLANG_ when she clipped the edge of the brass bell. Somehow she kept her balance, but Myrtenaster's light was out and her ears were ringing and where was Weiss?

Her question was answered when a sharp crackle of electricity filled the air, and a flash of lightning cast the scene in crisp black and white: Weiss was tangled with another townsperson, one who looked absolutely terrified out of his wits.

Moments later, Ruby, Weiss, and the no-longer slumbering night watchman sat around a small lantern. He was young and blonde- the same unfortunate soul who had been elected to carry the team's bags off the ship. The defeated sentry slouched, shamefaced while Weiss scolded him roundly for sleeping on the job.

"- _and_ you stacked our bags wrong. Seriously, you had _one_ instruction. Could you not have set them to the side?" the heiress finished straightening her hair and brushed dust from her skirt.

"Sorry," he mumbled in apology, fumbling with his mittens. In the course of Weiss's lecture, he'd spilled that he was fourteen, a year too young to work in the mines, thus serving on the short-staffed watch team. Ruby, who was for once not the youngest of the group, clapped a comradely arm over his shoulders and dispensed her just-barely-sixteen year old wisdom.

"Jack, you messed up pretty bad, but at least you didn't sliced in half or anything," whoops, that was a little more Uncle Qrow-ish than what she was going for, "Uh, I mean, let's keep watch together. That way no one has to try to stay up the whole night."

He wiped his nose on his sleeve, his jaw already showing purple where Weiss had landed a hit. He answered all of their questions, explaining that the lightning was Gale- she used it to keep the bats at bay and, well, Ruby had kind of signaled that they'd spotted a bat- and that the watch was divided up throughout the city- he just happened to be in charge of the bell tonight.

It was late. After Weiss felt Jack had been sufficiently chastised, she volunteered for first watch. Ruby would take second, and Jack the third, right before dawn.

"So you're good?" Ruby leaned on the low stone wall next to her partner, overlooking the town. She'd cleared a space in all the junk and dust for her and Weiss's bedrolls. They were set up on the side of the belfry opposite Jack, who was already huddled back under his collection of ratty blankets. A cold wind tugged at the edges of her hood, played through Weiss's white hair in the starlight.

"Ruby," Weiss took a breath, stole a glance. She indicated the cup in her hands, "This was a great idea."

The thermos came with only one cup, which doubled as a sort of insulated cap for the container. With it off, the hot chocolate was losing heat fast. Ruby rested her chin on her hand. "Too bad we didn't bring Yang. She could've warmed it up more."

Weiss huffed, "I could probably do it, with the right glyph."

Ruby looked up, "Yeah?"

The heiress lifted her chin and took another sip, "With some practice. Maybe."

"We should experiment."

Weiss gave a non-committal sort of hmmm, and for a while they watched out over the town in silence. The rooftops were varied, mostly tile and stone shingles, bathed in moonlight and shadow. A foreign landscape, broken up by streets and chimneys.

Ruby's scroll made the familiar _click_ of a heavy round being chambered in Crescent Rose.

She checked her messages. "Huh. They got our report." a glance at the time down in the corner of the screen, "Why are they writing back in the middle of the night?"

"Probably a delay. Bad reception. We do have some mountains in the way." Weiss took a sip of hot chocolate, " Either that, or Ozpin is an insomniac."

Ruby laughed a little, "Yeah, I could see that. Remember when he launched us from the cliff on our first day?"

"Of course. Didn't you kill a bird on the way down?"

"That was an accident," Ruby knelt on the floor so she could rest her chin on her crossed arms and still see out over the city. She sorted through memories of their first year, good and bad. Mostly good. After the Mountain Glen train wreck and the ensuing chaos in the city, things had quieted down. How could they not? Roman Torchwick was still in jail, and so many members of the White Fang had been killed in the explosion. So many. Had Blake known any of them? Ruby shied from that thought a little. "Hey, remember when Glynda waved her thing and the street put itself back together?"

"Mmhmm," Weiss leaned over a little more, so her elbows were perched on the wall.

Ruby tilted her head to look sideways and up at her, "Think we'll be able to do that kind of stuff? When we're full huntresses, I mean."

"I think you're a little more suited to taking things apart," Weiss nodded towards Crescent Rose, the scythe's blade gleaming in the moonlight.

"That's true," Ruby let her mind wander back to Torchwick. They had never figured out why he needed so much Dust. Other than the bombs designed to blow out the streets and let Grimm into the city, but bombs didn't take _that_ much. Where had the rest gone? Why had they wanted to let Grimm inside in the first place?

There was that lady too- the one with the mask and the dark hair who threw razor shards of glass at her the night of the dance. Her eyes, the way they burned, had seemed familiar somehow. Ruby drew her cloak a little closer around herself for warmth.

"I told you to put on another layer," Weiss offered her the cup and Ruby took a swallow of the thick, sweet drink and almost dropped it, yelping.

"Ack, that was hot!"

"No, really?" Weiss smirked, taking the cup back and setting it on the edge of the wall. She brushed Ruby's hand away when she repeatedly poked her shoulder in retaliation for her sarcasm. "Aren't you going to bed?"

"Yeah," Ruby coughed as the burning sensation subsided. She crossed the littered floor and collapsed onto her bed roll. Keeping watch was old hat. So was sleeping in junky old towers and stuff. All the members of Team RWBY could pretty much sleep wherever—lying down, sitting up. Ruby was pretty sure Blake had napped while standing before. One of those skills you picked up while training to be a huntress, she guessed.

Ruby took a last look at her partner, stoic and quiet against the night sky. It had been a crazy day, and things would probably get crazier. They always did. She snuggled down under her cloak and single extra blanket, mumbling, "Wake me up if anything crazy happens."

She was out before Weiss said anything in return.

* * *

Blake and Yang's trip back to the cabin was slow and painstaking, but blessedly uneventful.

Yang heaved a great sigh of relief when she finally ascended the steps to the front of the cabin, immensely grateful that Ruby and Weiss had left the door unlocked as she slipped into the dark interior of the lower floor. She fumbled a bit for the light switch, blinking and squinting when artificial light flooded the landing, illuminating her next obstacle... stairs. _Why_ did the beds have to be upstairs?

Heaving a great sigh, Yang stared up at the long climb, her overworked muscles aching from the sight alone - and also probably from Blake hanging off of her shoulder like a sack of rocks... A sack of warm, cuddly, purring rocks...

One hasty and excruciating trip up the unnecessarily narrow stairs later, Yang disentangled herself from her partner, gently laying Blake on one of the plush twin beds. The Faunus twitched, reaching for a pillow to filly the empty space once filled by Yang's arm. Yang stifled a giggle - Blake was out _cold,_ chest rising and falling with slow, even breaths. It really was a shame she was going to have to wake her, but she needed to make sure the Faunus drank a heaping ton of water. Dehydration from all that alcohol would be a huge pain otherwise.

Standing back a bit, Yang rolled her shoulders and stretched out her arms, stalling to build up the will to actually disturb her partner's criminally adorable sleeping visage.

"Hey..." she reached out to nudge Blake's shoulder, "hey, Blake?"

Blake's ears twitched visibly beneath her bow, backed by a small mewling noise as she rolled onto her side, curled around the pillow in her arms, and slept on.

Yang staggered backwards. "Nope. No. Too cute. You win for now." She whirled around and grabbed her bag on the way to the bathroom, intent on soothing her sore muscles with a scalding hot shower. She would worry about waking her actual-heart-attack-inducer of a partner after she was clean and loosened up.

* * *

Sunlight poured into team RWBY's quiet cabin from the cracked picture window looking out over the town, one edge of the creeping rays trailing over a very sleepy blonde sprawled out on one of the plush twin beds. One bleary amethyst eye cracked open at the bright intrusion, immediately squinting back shut.

It was too early to be awake. Yang was still exhausted from the previous night. All she'd wanted was to get Blake to drink water - she was trying to _help_ for goodness sake, but the task had been an exercise in extreme patience. She had been subjected to more nuzzles and _licks_ than she could count, which, while not at all unwelcome, made it difficult to do... literally anything else. And even once she'd successfully gotten Blake to drink an entire glass, the Faunus bolted immediately thereafter, forcing Yang into a surprise game of hide-and-seek that lasted well into the wee hours of the morning.

It was beyond her how Blake had even found hiding places in the smallish cabin. Granted, she never stayed hidden long - honestly, it had been more like a game of hide-and- _pounce_. Blake was apparently an expert at both of those things, even when drunk. Or perhaps _because_ she was drunk?

A series of three resounding knocks at the cabin's front door broke Yang from her string of half-lucid thought, dragging her into full consciousness. She squinted her eyes shut even harder, in defiance, but the knocks came again, louder this time.

Yang groaned. Why wasn't anyone answering the door? Where were Weiss and Ruby? ...Were they still out at the tower? Had they stayed there the entire night? A sleepy grin snaked across the brawler's features. Those two were practically _handing_ her prime teasing material on a silver platter. The only downside was... now _she_ had to answer the door. With a sigh, Yang started to sit up, but halted. Something very warm and very heavy was holding her down.

Curious, the brawler finally opened her eyes, glancing down to find herself beneath a sea of raven hair punctuated by two velvety cat ears. Yang snorted, but managed to keep from laughing outright. Sure enough, Blake had her pinned to the bed, even though Yang had stripped it of blankets and pillows and practically _buried_ the heat-seeking Faunus in her own personal mountain of blankets and pillows on the _other_ twin bed...

A subtle attempt to move only resulted in Blake tightening her hold on her chosen source of warmth, and Yang fought down a blush at the tickley sensation of Blake's face pressing into her collar. Resisting the ever-present urge to play with one of the velvety cat ears now poking her in the face, Yang settled for running a hand through her partner's wild tangle of hair, trying in vain to straighten it out a bit. "What am I, your personal space heater?"

One of Blake's ears twitched, but the Faunus remained dead to the world, even through a fresh round of _very insistent_ knocking at the cabin door. Frowning at the intrusion, Yang slowly but surely worked her way out from underneath her partner, deftly slipping her pillow into Blake's arms to take her place. She got to her feet, grimacing at a darkened wet patch of what was definitely drool on her tank top. "Oh my _god_ Blake, you're lucky you're cute..." Blake's other ear twitched this time. Yang froze at the sight - Blake's _ears_.

She whirled around, spotting Blake's ribbon crumpled on the floor by the dresser, where it had gotten knocked off during hide-and-pounce the night before. She squinted at the black strip of cloth, doubting her ability to bind Blake's ears properly... which meant it was time for a hastily devised plan B.

Yang darted over to her bag, digging through it and pulling out a bright red wool beanie - she always brought it along on winter trips, just in case Ruby got cold. It would have to do. Carefully, gently, she worked the beanie over Blake's head, just far enough to stay put without crushing her Faunus ears. She then buried her in the blankets and pillows that had been heaped on the other bed. Miraculously, her partner slept on.

Satisfied with her work, Yang leaped down the stairs three at a time and threw the front door open, revealing a very short, reedy man, wearing what looked like some kind of blue postman's uniform, his arm already raised to knock again. He smiled up at her, watery blue eyes crinkling at the edges.

"Telegram for Beacon's Huntresses."

Yang stared, utterly fascinated by the small piece of paper being thrust into her face. "Woah. This is real paper!" She took the telegram, gingerly examining it from every side. "Why didn't you just send a message to our scrolls?"

"Reception's not so good around here. G'day miss." The small man winked, tipped his navy blue hat, and strolled away.

Yang waved at the postman's retreating form before heading back inside and turning her attention to the blocky printed text of the telegram he'd just delivered.

 _Team RWBY_

 _Negotiations are still underway concerning the mines. Please continue to have Ms Schnee avoid them for now. Thank you for your understanding._

 _Gale Indra_

Yang turned the paper over, but the back was blank. "Huh. Straightforward." She tossed the telegram onto the empty couch. The couch where Weiss should have been sleeping, except that she and Ruby still hadn't come back yet... Yang allowed herself a devious smirk. She was going to pay those two a visit.

* * *

 **A/N: Pro tip, never agree to play hide and seek with someone who's character song is literally _From Shadows._**

 **Hope you guys had a hoppin' Easter~~ (I'm soRRY)**

 **Tune in next time for party-crasher Yang, probably slightly hung over Blake, scowly Weiss, and ready for action Ruby!**

 **Hugs,**  
 **Defenestrator**


	6. Burnt Scrambled Eggs Make for a Long Day

Considering it was dawn, and the sheer height of the structure Yang was looking for, finding the bell tower was pretty much the easiest thing in the world. In no time, she was quietly scaling the darkened spiraling stone staircase. At least, as quietly as she could with her boots echoing with each step. The wooden trap door at the top of the stairs stopped her for only a moment, and she was grateful for her gloves as she pushed it open and stepped through - that thing looked incredibly splintery.

Once she stepped up to the tower's top, the sight that met her stopped Yang dead in her tracks, frozen. Ruby and Weiss, fast asleep on the floor of the belfry, practically on top of one another. Well, to be precise, it looked more like Ruby had sprawled all over her partner in a quest for warmth - one arm haphazardly thrown over the heiress's shoulders, a leg across her hips, face buried in her shoulder...

The nice thing to do would be to let them sleep. They'd probably been up all night in the cold, diligently keeping watch. And they did look _awfully_ cute...

But they had gotten a _telegram._ Yang had a _message_ to deliver. Clearly she had _no choice_ but to wake them.

Yang moved so that she was standing right over them and crossed her arms, smirking like there was no tomorrow as she announced nice and loud, "Rise and shine, lovebirds."

"Five more minutes..." Ruby mumbled against the base of Weiss's neck, snuggling closer for a few more moments before getting dumped on the floor by the very awake, very unhappy heiress.

" _Ruby Rose_ what on Remnant did you even think-" Weiss shot to her feet, redder than Crescent Rose's paint job as she kicked free of the blanket wrapped around her legs.

Ruby sat up from the pair of mussed bed rolls, rubbing her eyes while she tried to get her bearings. Her dark hair was a mess. "Ugh… is it morning?"

"It's been morning for the past _hour,_ " Yang crouched down to ruffle her little sister's hair, throwing the already disheveled locks in to utter chaos. She leveled a sly, sidelong glance at Weiss. "Did you sleep well?"

"Yes. No," Weiss spat, indignant. She marched partway around the curve of the bell to the other side of the belfry and back, scowling, "What happened to that boy? He was supposed to be keeping watch."

"He said he was going home to bed once it was light," Ruby combed her fingers through her hair and shoved some old boxes that had fallen onto the corner of her bedroll, "I guess he didn't wake us up?"

"He probably didn't want to disturb such a sweet scene~" Yang poked Ruby's cheek before standing and stretching out her back. She was still a bit stiff from Blake repeatedly tackling her to the floor. And into walls. And furniture. And maybe knocking her off of the balcony once.

"Weiss, I didn't do it on purpose," Ruby whined as the heiress snatched her blanket and bedroll out from under her.

"That's no excuse," Weiss's ears still burned with embarrassment as she bundled her things together and used the polished surface of the brass bell as an imperfect mirror, straightening her coat and hair. She snapped at Yang, "What are you even doing here? Aren't you looking after Blake?"

"Blake is just _fine_ \- sleeping like the dead, in fact. Didn't even wake up for that telegram guy. You're still banned by the way," Yang pulled the tiny square message from her jacket, offering it to Weiss.

Weiss regarded the slip of paper with incredulity, "She sent a _telegram?_ "

"We should have breakfast," Ruby broke in before the heiress could get started, pumping an enthusiastic fist to attract attention, "We can talk about plans and check on Blake _and_ I'm pretty sure there's toast and jam and some kind of crazy valley sausage."

Overall, the young team leader deemed the night of keeping watch a middling success. The town was Grimm free, but only by virtue of the complete lack of bat attacks. She hadn't even gotten to _see_ one, which was enormously disappointing; however, the knowledge that there were still at least nine days before Chuck came back to check up on them put the spring back in her step.

The town bustled with folks going about their daily routines. Most of the men had long since left for the mines, but the kids broke ice in the buckets set out for their dogs and cats, and folks carried pitchforks and other odds and ends on their way down the valley to repair fences or watch the sheep. A couple of teenagers dragged a roughshod wagon off towards the trees among the steep hills. Ruby and Yang waved. Weiss ignored them.

It was biting cold- moreso than the day before. By the time they reached the cabin Ruby's nose felt like an icicle and she was remembering distinctly the winter Yang had dared her to lick Crescent Rose and she'd gotten stuck.

"Brrrrrrrrrrrrr," Ruby shouldered the door open, shifting to freezing-cold team leader mode. She pointed to her sister, "Yang, fire. Weiss, check on Blake? I'll start the scrambled eggs."

"You got it sis," Yang gave the fireplace a quick once-over, finding a small pile of wood, sticks, and a stack of paper resting beside it. The unopened box of matches sitting on the rust red bricks beside an iron poker was practically begging her to set something aflame. She set to work with a smile, calling to Weiss as she tossed some of the sticks into the firepit. "Hey so, I'm not sure if Blake will be... _jumpy_ ," she made a pouncing motion, "or not when she wakes up. If you get what I mean. Be careful up there."

"Wonderful," Weiss grumbled as she shed her coat and set it and her bedroll on the couch, claiming her space. The stairs creaked as she marched up, ready to duck if her teammate decided to take a running dive at her, or something.

Light filtered through the tiny window in the back wall of the loft, illuminating the pair of twin beds. One was naked of everything but its sheet; the other was a mountain of blankets, quilts, and pillows.

Weiss stood at the top of the stairs, watching the pile of bedclothes suspiciously, "Blake? Get up. We're making breakfast."

"Not... so loud..." Blake's muffled voice drifted through a small gap between two of the larger pillows - both of which tumbled away moments later when a cherry red woolen beanie pushed through, resting just above slowly blinking bloodshot amber eyes. Blake felt as though she had been chewed up by a Goliath and spat out, and then trampled, and then dropped from an airship.

Her head throbbed, the light pouring in from the windows burning holes into the back of her skull, even when she squinted. Her gaze drifted from the window, to the stripped twin bed, then down to her own fortress of warmth. "Where... how did I..." She reached up to put a hand to her head, blinking in confusion when her fingers encountered an unfamiliar hat which she promptly pulled off. Her eyes drifted from the vibrant red beanie up to Weiss, who was cautiously keeping her distance. The last thing she remembered was the tavern, reading her book and drinking apple cider that had a slight tang to it... Velvety black ears flattened against her head. "...I don't want to know, do I?"

"You drank yourself past coherence and spent the entire evening cuddling with Yang," the heiress tossed her white hair back over her shoulder and turned to descend the stairs, "that's what I gather, anyway. Breakfast is soon, if Ruby doesn't burn down the kitchen first."

Blake sank back down into her pile of blankets to hide the bright red mortification creeping up her neck and ears as Weiss disappeared to the lower floor, desperately hoping that the heiress was just exaggerating for the sake of teasing. Determined to face the day as normal regardless of whatever she may have done during her drunken stupor, Blake wriggled her way free of her pillow and blanket fort and grabbed for her bag, missing once or twice before properly grasping it and trudging over to the bathroom.

Once she was cleaned up and clothed for the day, Blake carefully made her way downstairs, finding the rest of her team in the kitchen. Ruby was using an oversized wooden spoon to push around... something... in a frying pan while Weiss hovered over her, and Yang was focused on the stack of dishes by the sink built into the low bar-style countertop that jutted out from the kitchen wall. The plates, silverware and cups that the brawler was washing looked as though they hadn't been used in a decade or so. Blake braced herself on the counter, enticed but also slightly nauseated by the smells of breakfast permeating the area.

"Yang."

The brawler in question glanced up from her dishes, face lighting up in an instant. "Well good morning, bright eyes. How are you feeling?"

The soft, subdued tone coming from her usually over-enthusiastic partner was a welcome surprise. Almost as if she knew to avoid loud noises... Blake's eyebrow quirked in wonder at just how much familiarity the blonde had with handling hangovers. She then remembered she had been asked a question. "Sound hurts." She thought for a moment longer. "Light hurts... Thinking hurts."

"Aw, Blakey, here," Yang filled one of her freshly cleaned glasses with cold water from the sink and held it out with a smile.

Blake ignored the nickname and took the proffered drink with a quiet murmur of thanks and took a sip, relishing the feel of the cool liquid. "Thanks for this," she held up the glass, "and for... helping me, last night," her eyes dipped down, "Sorry for the trouble." Yang's laughter caught her off guard.

"Oh come on, it wasn't _that_ bad. You're pretty comfy actually."

Blake paled. "...Comfy?"

"Yup! You were cold I guess and snuck into my bed at some point."

Blake suppressed a groan, lightly touching her fingers to her temple. First Weiss, and now Yang. If she wasn't careful, she was going to get a reputation. "Sorry."

"Don't be!" Yang waved a plate, dismissing the apology, "I'm used to it. Ruby used to do the same thing, every winter. And anyway, you're always welcome."

"E-excuse me?" Blake nearly dropped her glass.

The sly smirk on Yang's face signaled she was probably being teased, but the brawler's eyes seemed genuine as she leaned forward, eyebrows wiggling. "You can share my bed anytime~"

For once, Blake was glad for the hangover, as she could blame it for the red flush that was currently exploding across her face. She smacked Yang's arm, earning a good-natured laugh from the brawler who went back to her dishes as Blake escaped further into the kitchen to see what her less flirtatious teammates were up to.

"Ruby, it's burning," Weiss stood, arms crossed, at her partner's elbow.

"It's not," Ruby scraped hurriedly at the edge of the pan with her wooden spoon, "It's just a little crispy on that one side."

"And a little runny on the other," the heiress watched Ruby stir the blackened pieces back into the clear-orange slime on the less-heated side, "Is it even possible to have a dish both burned and raw?"

"It's fine, it's fine," Ruby tried to center the pan over the heat and fiddled with one of the knobs to see if it would help, "This oven's just different than the one I'm used to."

"You're turning it down? So we'll have _warm_ burnt-raw eggs. Great."

The younger girl tightened her grip on the spoon, "Look, if you want to cook, Weiss-"

"I'm not the one who volunteered," the white-haired girl made room for Blake, "How about you, Blake? Awake enough to handle yourself in the kitchen?"

Blake held her hands up. "I've never been great with eggs, but..." she eyed a small packet of what looked like some kind of fat purpleish sausages sitting by Ruby's half-empty carton of eggs. With a glance back at the iron poker sitting by the roaring fire in the fireplace, she grasped the cold package, "I think I can still make myself useful."

Fifteen minutes later, Ruby had finished burning the eggs and sat with her team at the small kitchen table, downcast over the half-breakfast, half-charcoal meal. Blake's sausages looked amazing, if a little stabbed-to-death. Weiss contributed by pouring glasses of milk.

"So," the young team leader tugged the collar of her shirt, glancing at her big sister, "mayyyyybe next time I'll start the fire and you can cook."

"Hey, you did your best! That's what matters," Yang placed a hand on Ruby's arm, giving it a small reassuring squeeze.

Beside her, Blake nodded, humming in agreement before taking an experimental bite of the blackened mass that was supposed to be eggs. Her bow crunched backwards, ears flattened against her skull, her face miraculously passive as she reached for the glass Weiss had just set beside her, quietly draining half of it in one shot.

"Um..." Yang glanced warily at her own plate of... 'food', "Well, we can also work in improving your best."

"Drinking eggs raw from a tin can would be a step up," Weiss scraped the blackened mess on her plate directly into the trash before taking her seat.

Ruby shrank under the enormity of her failure, "Well, uh, sorry for now, guys. At least Blake's sausage is good, though, right?"

When they headed in to town, they found out that Gregor, the chief miner from the night before, had posted notices on all of the bulletin boards in the square that his employees were not to associate with a certain white haired heiress, complete with an unflattering picture drawn in what looked like crayon. This of course left her sputtering with fury.

"Is he in _grade school_? _Kindergarten?_ What sort of petty, idiotic _child_ -" Weiss bit back the rest of her words as the others drew her attention to the few townsfolk going about their business. They were looking from the notices to her and back, and the heiress gritted her teeth, blushing all the way to her collar.

So they explored the hills that day. Some of Gale's assistants provided the girls with maps of the area, which they divided into sectors according to what they thought they could cover each day. Some of the village boys and girls pointed them to the head of the steep trail snaking up the side of the mountain, and Ruby and the others were off.

* * *

The pines whispered as the four teammates trekked beneath their boughs, footsteps muted by thick carpets of dead needles.

This was familiar work. They spread out to cover more ground. Ruby scoped out the high crags through Crescent Rose's magnifier sights while Blake kept her ears to the ground. Yang's aura burned bright as she called out, looking under boulders and brush for any sign of Grimm, and Weiss took to the trees, studying the lay of the land and it's make up. The likelihood of fissures opening up during mining operations would play a big part in whether they continued searching for crevices on the farther sides of the mountain or directed their energies into getting access to the mines.

Ruby lowered her rifle, cloak snapping behind her as she hopped down from her perch on a jagged chunk of fallen rock to check up on her team. Blake was nearest at hand. Ruby packed Crescent Rose away as she approached the Faunus, "Hear anything?"

Blake remained still, head pressed gently to the earth, listening to her partner's enthusiastic stomping which despite its distance was roughly equal in volume to Ruby's lighter footsteps coming from directly behind her. Yang's raucous attempts to flush out any nearby Grimm had thus far only succeeded in terrifying the local wildlife, but it _had_ helped make one thing fantastically clear. Blake could hear no echoing evidence of hidden depths below.

"The ground here is solid," she confirmed, nodding to Ruby as she rose from her crouched position and brushed a bit of dirt from her hair. "If there are any crevices that run down into the mines, they must be farther up the mountainside."

The bushes just to their left exploded in a flurry of birds and squirrels desperately fleeing from the irritated brawler that came crashing through the stiff brambles seconds later. "There is NOTHING out here. Absolutely nothing." Yang retracted her gauntlets, folding her arms in a huff as Blake came to her side. She had _really_ been hoping for a bit of action. "Wherever these lily-bat-things are hiding, it isn't the forest."

"Liliac," Blake corrected, gingerly picking twigs and leaves out of her partner's tangled mane of gold.

"Right, those," Yang punched a fist into her hand, eyes locked on Ruby. "I'm thinking we're going to have to lure one out."

"It would be nice to have _some_ kind of, y'know, excitement," Ruby bumped her fists one on top of the other. The lightning bolt last night had been pretty cool, and she'd forgotten to ask Gale about it in the morning (though it was polite not to ask about strangers' semblances. Maybe it was a type of Dust?), but she was here to shoot Grimm, and so far they hadn't seen so much as a scrap of bone mask. The were banned from the mine where most of them lived for now, and so far the hidden crevice thing was a bust, so a trap did seem like a good idea. The trouble was, luring them out would have to involve a _lur_ e. Ruby crossed her arms and stroked her chin, the picture of contemplation, "Maybe we can catch one. Like, in a box or something? If one of us acts as bait."

But who?

Weiss dropped lightly to the ground beside the group. "Not that I'm in an enormous hurry to get back to the village that posts un-wanted posters of me in the square, but I am getting tired of staring at rocks and trees. Not to mention I'm positively starving."

She fussed with her clothes and picked pine needles and sap from her hair a moment before noticing Ruby and the others' looks. "... why are you staring at me like that?"

* * *

 **A/N: This is going to be the best trap ever.**

 **Thanks for the reviews and favs! You guys are great.**

 **-Fiercesomest**


	7. First Contact

**A/N: So, this chapter is about one hour shy of being posted properly on rwby Tuesday, and about 30 minutes of that was picking a chapter name - I never expected how secretly difficult it is to name chapters...**

 **Apology hugs,  
Defenestrator**

* * *

"I can't believe she agreed to be bait."

Amber eyes watched Ruby and Weiss from afar, unhindered by the complete darkness of the cloudy, starless night. The two were working fast under the gentle glow from Myrtenaster's blade, setting up the... incredibly primitive trap Ruby and Yang had devised.

A crate. Propped up on a stick, attached to a length of rope.

The plan was simple - stick Blake in a tree to keep a lookout and give the signal since she was the only one who could see without needing a light source, place Weiss under the propped up box with Myrtenaster alight, and wait for a Liliac to attack. Then, Ruby would speed in and remove Weiss while Yang pulled the stick out, dropping the box and trapping the Liliac inside.

It was _far_ from foolproof, but Blake had to admit, spending the day helping the incredibly unhappy heiress scout out a prime location to set up their trap had felt more productive than any of the scouting they'd done that morning. Ruby and Yang, the town's favorites, had spent the day securing a large, oblong wooden crate from the town's warehouse, a sturdy 2x4 from the carpentry shop, rope from the shepherds, and a mountain of sandwiches from the fresh market. Their "fearless hunter-gatherers" had returned just before nightfall, food and supplies in hand, looking _incredibly_ pleased with their success.

"Well, when you're the only one with a weapon that glows... And you're the smallest... And the grumpiest... Grimm are drawn to negativity, right?" Yang smirked, rolling the end of the soft, well-worn rope between her fingers. She wasn't quite able to see the length of it stretching out to the crate in the distance, but she could pick its trail up once it reached the cool circle of light emanating from Weiss's dust-powered blade.

"Telling her all of that to her face certainly didn't _improve_ her mood any. Thanks for leaving me with _that_ all day. I've never even heard of some of the things she called you."

"She didn't seem too unhappy about the food though," Yang laughed and reached out to give her partner a hug of apology, but missed by a mile, finding nothing but the empty air in front of the amused Faunus.

Blake rolled her eyes, humans had the _worst_ vision in the dark. She grabbed Yang's flailing arm and pulled it around her shoulders, giving her a gentle jab to the ribs with a finger. "Yes well, be sure you apologize to her later. Weiss's height is a sensitive subject."

"I will - where are you going?"

The Faunus had already slipped from her partner's grasp and moved to the base of the nearest tree. "It looks like they're nearly finished. I'm going to start keeping a lookout. Listen for the signal."

"You got it!" Adrenaline already rushing through her ears, Yank hunkered down with the rope, hidden behind a wall of brush, squinting through the leaves at the shadows shifting about in the soft blue brightness in the distance.

* * *

Ruby backed off from her partner, slipping out into the shadows. "I'm _right_ over there. Don't even worry."

"I am _so_ far beyond worrying," Weiss hissed from her crouched position under the edge of the box.

The other teen cringed, "Yeah, no, it'll be fine though. Well, at least you'll be fine."

"Obviously," the heiress white-knuckled her sword.

Earlier in the afternoon, they had talked out trap ideas, everything from nets (but reports said the Liliac had claws capable of severing the occasional steel cable in the mines) to freezing them on the spot (though smaller Grimm caught in Dust ice had a tendency to die instantly, which wasn't terribly conducive to research) to, well, a box and stick set up. The latter won out.

"This is beyond moronic", "I hate all of you right now" and "I agreed to be _bait_ not a Dust-forsaken _carrot_ " were among the highlights of Weiss's ensuing tirades, plus a few more intricate verbal daggers reserved for Yang. It hadn't helped that wonder-blonde had come back crowing about what a _fantastic_ idea the villagers thought this was. Several had asked if they could come watch. After all, what disgruntled backwoods miner would pass up the chance of sticking the Schnee heiress under a box and waiting for the Grimm to eat her?

... on the other hand, of course, if through some quirk of fate this _worked_ , it might help prove she was on their side. Or something. The night was cold and she couldn't see much of anything beyond Myrtenaster's circle of Dust-born light. Weiss didn't particularly care about what the James Pointers thought of her- really, she didn't- but she hated being the one holding back her team, keeping them from doing their job as huntresses in training. So she waited, crouched under the edge of the sturdy crate, putting on a mask of calm while her heart raced.

Ruby took up her position at the edge of the small clearing. She'd taken the liberty of clearing out any rocks or branches or anything she could trip on in the dark on her way to Weiss. This wasn't exactly the best idea she and Yang had ever cooked up, but what budding huntress hadn't daydreamed about catching a live Grimm in a rough hewn wooden crate? Okay, maybe that was just a Rose/Xiao-Long thing, but still. If the crate could just trap the Liliac for a second- long enough for Yang to get her hands on it- it would be enough. So Ruby crouched, waiting for Blake's signal.

It was after midnight before Ruby heard any sound at all other than the shush of wind through pine needles. She straightened, alert at once. She couldn't see Blake or Yang, but Weiss was listening, knees drawn up to her chest in the circle of her rapier's light.

The sound echoed over the hills- the distant, lonely toll of a bell.

A sharp report followed, lighting the clouds from below for a fraction of a second: Gale's lightning.

Ruby braced her arms on the ground like a runner at the mark and focused on Weiss, on listening for the signal to get her out.

Up in the trees, Blake tensed, scouring the skies. Her gaze zeroed in on a dark mass high in the air slowly headed their way - the Liliac she had seen minutes earlier, passing right over them in favor of the town proper. It was now gliding back, the membrane of its right wing sporting an impressive, smoldering scorch mark.

Blood red eyes locked onto Myrtenaster's light-blue glow. Blake watched as the beast folded its wings and dropped straight into a nose-dive, descending far more quickly than she'd expected.

" _Ruby!_ "

An almost instantaneous flurry of rose petals and the blue light was gone, removed from the Liliac's sights a split-second before it touched down with a hearty _thud_ against the forest floor right where Weiss had just been crouching.

" _Yang_!"

With every ounce of force Yang could muster, the brawler yanked at the rope. A resounding _snap_ rang through the air, deafening in the silence of the darkness.

Blake could see it, but she knew the others couldn't - the length of rope had snapped in half.

Not even bothering to fathom why the trap hadn't worked, Yang dashed towards the propped open crate, refusing to let their elusive guest escape. She registered her partner's cry of warning a second too late. The brawler yelped in alarm and pain as two razor-sharp claws seemingly materialized from the darkness and struck her in the face, one catching the edge of her right eye and dragging back across the tip of her ear to lock behind her head, the other scoring a deep red line across her cheek and down her neck to grasp the back of her shoulder.

Glowing red eyes opened right in front of Yang's own, illuminating a cracked and weathered mask of bone stretching back across the Grimm's smallish skull, partially covering a wide, grinning set of jaws sporting no discernible teeth other than two oversized needle-like fangs. Fangs that were headed straight for her neck. Snarling a few choice curses, Yang grabbed the bony fingers of the long spindly wing wrapped around her head with one hand, and _punched_ the dog-sized creature right off of her face with the other.

" _Weiss._ " the Liliac was flailing like mad, slashing through the dark at every bit of Yang it could reach with the enormous claw tipping the joint of its free wing, but the brawler held her semblance at bay for fear of incinerating their research subject. "I need light!"

Ruby was already circling Crescent Rose open in the dark, defending the fencer as she levered herself up and summoned one of her glyphs. A spiked ring of blue sprang up in the clearing, perpendicular to the ground, giving off just enough light to see Yang wrangling what appeared to be an angry shadow, a patch of night gone wrong.

A second shadow darted into the newly lighted area, and Blake was at her partner's side in an instant, snatching the Liliac's flailing free wing and pulling, stretching the limb taut in an effort to keep it still. Yang reached to grab the immobilized wing just as the Grimm whipped its head around, looked Yang dead in the eyes, opened its gaping mouth wide, and _screeched._

Nearby animals scattered in the wake of the unfathomably hideous sound tearing through the air, the point blank attack rattling Yang's teeth and reverberating through her whole body. Dry, jagged, and harsher than nails on a chalkboard, the sheer volume and pitch of the cry dropped Blake to the ground in agony, hands that were once clutching the Liliac's free wing now clutching at the ears beneath her bow.

An outburst of rage from Yang mixed its way into the Grimm's sonic assault, heralding her own attack - a long overdue chokeslam, taking the Grimm by its neck on a one way trip into the ground where she quickly straddled the struggling beast to hold it down, pinning a wing beneath each knee and wrenching its fanged muzzle shut to stop that awful horrible screeching. Silence returned to the forest as the Grimm writhed and twisted, trying desperately to get its jaws open, but the brawler held fast, minding those nasty-looking fangs.

A hand touch Yang's shoulder and she looked up, smiling when she saw her partner's worried expression, but frowning as she watched Blake's mouth move, hearing nothing but a faint muddled ringing.

"Whoa, you got it!" Ruby cheered and zipped over to see.

"Wait, _wait,"_ Weiss held her glyph to provide light while she scrambled briefly in the brush for Myrtenaster, who she'd lost during Ruby's full-body tackle.

"It's kind of tiny," Ruby crouched over the angry creature pinned in her sister's grip. She was about to poke it when she noticed the blood and the bewildered look on Yang's face, "Hey, you okay?"

The brawler squinted up at her little sister, starting when she felt Blake's hands gently brush either side her face. The Faunus turned her partner's head left and right, inspecting the long angry gashes running tracks across her skin. They were bleeding profusely, as face wounds often did, but they didn't seem deep, and there had been no reports of the Liliac's claws being poisonous... "She seems okay - Yang?" The brawler was shaking her head as if to clear it, amethyst eyes boring into amber when she finally stopped. "... _Are_ you okay?"

Yang glanced back and forth between Blake and Ruby, her expression slowly falling until she eventually letting loose with a lengthy groan. "Sorry guys. Can't hear you."

"It must have been that sound," the blue light faded out and was replaced with the softer glow of Weiss's sword as she joined the others. She stood at Yang's side, holding Myrtenaster so she could assess the blonde's injuries. It was difficult to tell if blood was coming from her ears or if it was simply from bat's claw marks. Weiss nudged the body of the still-thrashing Liliac with the tip of her sword, "In any case, we should probably take care of this first."

Ruby slipped into team-leader mode, "Right, okay. Blake, you've got the bandages," She laid Crescent Rose out on the ground near the Grimm, measuring it's wingspan against the straight portions of scythe-rifle. "Weiss, can you give me some more light?"

Blood dripped down Yang's chin into the Grimm's fur. Weiss huffed, tilting Myrtenaster to give both Ruby and Blake enough light to work by. They knew very, very little about these creatures, and while the James Pointers hadn't experienced any sort of toxins from the bats that didn't preclude the possibility. She recorded Ruby's measurements and added her own observations on her scroll, but couldn't help stealing glances at the slash marks on Yang's face.

"Do you think we can look at its teeth while it's alive?" Ruby looked up at Weiss and Blake, eyes silver-blue in the weird light. "Or should we just kill it and take pictures fast?"

Blake already had her pocket-sized first aid kit out, pouring disinfectant onto a small square rag as she knelt beside Yang. "We should probably get all the information we can while it's alive..." she pressed the rag to her partner's neck, earning a few choice curses in response as she tried to clean the amazingly precise gashes. "These look like they were cut with razor blades... Yang," she place a hand on the brawler's arm to get her attention.

"Hm?"

"Yang, we need to see its _teeth,_ " Blake spoke slowly, carefully mouthing each word as she motioned to her eyes, tapped her own canines, then pointed to the Grimm's face, clamped shut beneath brawler's hands.

"You... you want to look at this thing's teeth?"

Blake nodded.

"Okay..." Yang glared down at the wild crimson eyes peeking out from between her fingers. Never once loosening her grip, she shifted her hands from covering the tip of the bone-white muzzle to holding it shut at its base, revealing a pair of pristine, two-inch pearly white fangs, streaked with the telltale grimm-red markings.

Ruby held her open palm beside the creature's head for scale while Weiss snapped a couple of pictures with her scroll. The young team leader scooted a little closer to get a good look at the designs in its teeth. "I wonder why it's got red here."

"Is it blood?" Weiss frowned glancing from the bat to Yang and back.

"It's like what they usually have on their masks," Ruby sat back. They'd taken all their measurements and gotten some pictures. Analyzing attack patterns and coming up with effective extermination strategies would have to wait till they had tangled with a few more of them. For now, the way the little clot of darkness squirmed in Yang's grip made Ruby's skin crawl. She hauled Crescent Rose into her lap, "Okay. Good job, team," she chambered a round, "Let's clean up and head back to the cabin."

"Ruby," Blake placed a hand atop Crescent Rose, catching her team leader's quicksilver eyes, "Maybe we should hold off on gunfire. The shots might draw more of them."

"Uh.. guys?" Yang's voice cut through the fresh silence, "It stopped moving."

Everyone's attention dropped to the prone Grimm bat. Its ears no longer pricked madly in every direction and it seemed to have gone limp in Yang's grasp. Was it even breathing? Or was the icy breeze just stirring through the creature's thick fur?

"It could be playing dead," Weiss cautioned, pocketing her scroll and angling Myrtenaster to get a better look at the creature's eyes.

Yang stared down at the blank blackened holes where the red glow of a Grimm's eyes usually shone. Unable to hear the heiress's words of warning, she loosened her grip.

"Did I strangle it?..."

The second her fingers left is jaws, the red glow of the Grimm's eyes snapped back into existence as the Liliac lunged for one of Yang's hands. Before the brawler could react, a flash of black steel severed the creature's head from its shoulders - the newly liberated skull flying off into the darkness where it landed in a tangle of bushes.

Blake paused for a moment, letting her thoughts catch up with her reflexes as she re-sheathed Gambol Shroud. "Well..." she glanced sheepishly at her team leader, "I guess that's all the research we can do on this one."

Weiss dropped her hasty guard and snapped at Yang, "Did I not _just_ say it might be faking?"

"Weiss," Ruby's tone checked the heiress. Yang was deaf. Hopefully temporarily.

The young team leader relaxed her grip on Crescent Rose as the bat's body sifted away into the night like ash. She offered Blake a thumbs-up, "Let's list 'decapitation' as the top extermination technique so far. Maybe next to giant bolts of lightning."

The moon was nothing but a smudge behind the clouds now. Ruby gave her team a quick once-over and announced, "Let's go see if we can wake someone up at the infirmary. Er, clinic? Whatever it's called," she tilted her head and waved to catch Yang's attention, before she pulled on her arm, "Those cuts look okay but we really need you to be able to hear, so let's go."

Yang got to her feet, brushing black specks of Liliac from her hands. She smiled down at Ruby. "...What are you doing? You want a hug or something, sis?"

Amber eyes rolled and Blake stood as well, grabbing the brawler's other arm and helping Ruby drag her away. "Come on, you."

"Wait, what?" Yang happily allowed herself to be pulled past Weiss, out of Myrtenaster's circle of light, and into the surrounding darkness of the forest towards town. "Oh no Weiss help me I'm being abducted~!"

"I'm not helping you, you enormous moron," the heiress grumbled. She hung back, taking one last look at the trap set up, the severed rope- doubtless cut by the bat's claws- and the dark shapes of the surrounding pines. The cold and the soft hiss of the wind through the needles made the hair on the back of her neck prickle.

Ruby yelped. There was the sound of her tripping over something in the dark. Weiss picked up her pace to light the way.

* * *

From the outside, the James Point Clinic looked more or less like the other houses on the street, save for the sign that hung over the door. "Clinic" it said simply in cursive script, burned into weathered wood. The hours were posted as 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m., but a light in the window came on when Ruby knocked.

A handful of seconds later the door's latch clicked and it opened a few inches, revealing a familiar face- the young woman who'd escorted them to the tavern their first night.

"Hello?" she wore a blue night shirt over a rumpled skirt and seemed to have just woken up. Her sleepy expression changed when she noticed the blood on Yang's face. "Oh, you're hurt."

"Um... hi again," Yang shot a sidelong glance at her teammates, whispering very loudly, "She's making a face at me. Do I look that bad? I don't _feel_ that bad."

"Yang," Blake crossed her arms, "You're bloodier than a butcher's block and you've been deafened."

"...What?"

"Exactly," Blake pushed her partner past the startled woman into the cozy clinic, shoving her into the nearest high-backed chair.

"Er... can we come in?" Ruby peered in past the doorstep, squinting in the lamplight. Their host motioned for her to enter. Weiss followed, finally allowing Myrtenaster's glow to die away.

"Please, through here," the young woman shut the front door and crossed to another doorway, beckoning to Blake, "there's a few beds and examination tables, and we have better lighting." she leaned to call up a steep, narrow staircase tucked in the short hallway leading from the front room. "Curtis? Curt, wake up."

The room they steered Yang into was open and clean. Several beds occupied space against the east wall, near a window, while counters and shelves packed with medical supplies lined the rest. A couple of chairs and a sturdy wooden table- plus dishes lined up to dry beside the sink- clued Ruby into this room doubling as the kitchen.

She watched her sister pretend to be totally fine while she got settled at the table. The girl put some water on the stove and started sorting through packets of some kind of herbs from a cabinet nearest the beds.

A man with dark hair and glasses entered, rubbing his face. He wore a mussed button-down shirt and had a blue handkerchief tucked into his back pocket, "Okay, what've we got? More bats?" He stopped at the table, resettling his glasses to take a look at Yang's injuries. His brow furrowed in recognition, and he stole a glance at the brown-haired girl by the cabinet while he spoke to Ruby's team, "Oh, you're the in-trainings from Beacon. Why... are you covered in blood?"

Resting at the table, Yang watched as her teammates spoke to who she assumed was the local doctor, keeping an easy smile plastered to her face despite the claustrophobic silence pressing in on her from every side. She didn't need to hear their voices to see the worry on Blake and Ruby's faces - even Weiss kept casting glances in her direction. It wouldn't help matters to start worrying herself as well. She could handle a little peace and quiet for a while. Maybe not forever but... even then she could probably still fight. She would be fine, probably... There were blind hunters and huntresses, right?

An unfamiliar hand tilting her chin up broke Yang from her thoughts. The doctor had just said something. Was he talking to her? She grinned up at him. "...Hm? What? Sorry, my hearing got a little... BATtered, you'll have to speak up."

The man, Curtis, blinked while the others groaned. Weiss stalked to the far window, grumbling about idiots. Ruby picked her head up off the table, mustering a half-hearted laugh, "Yeah, um. A Liliac made this loud sound at her and..."

"Blew out her hearing," the dark-haired man finished, digging in a drawer for a small scope. He wiped the instrument on his shirt and stuck the small end in Yang's ear. "Hm... Cy, could you hand me a towel?"

"I guess all the cuts are from its claws?" the girl dipped a cloth in the near-boiling water and wrung it out into the sink before passing it over. Without a task to perform, her hands slipped into her skirt pockets, "You're lucky. They're usually a lot deeper."

To have been able to score through Yang's protective aura... even if she hadn't really turned up the heat, that was pretty serious. Ruby swallowed, scooting her chair a little closer to the table. She fidgeted with the cuffs of her black long-sleeved shirt and tried not to imagine what would have happened if the Grimm's claws had caught her sister's eye. Maybe the box idea hadn't been so great. Well, she knew that beforehand, but... well... "So you see a lot of bat injuries these days? Uh, I'm Ruby, by the way."

That got her a smile from the young woman. "I'm Cyan."

"And I'm afraid it'll be a little while before your friend'll hear much," Curtis dabbed at the dried blood around Yang's cuts. He pointed to his own ear, speaking slowly and loudly for Yang's benefit. "It'll come back," he said. He added in his normal tone and volume, "Mostly. Probably."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Weiss demanded as she returned from the window and slipped into the chair beside Ruby. She shed her white outer coat and crossed her arms.

There was recognition in Curtis's sleep-heavy eyes, but he didn't comment on her name or family, "Well, it means I'm not sure of her healing capabilities, so we'll have to see what happens," he sat back in his chair and ran a hand through his hair. "How did she get these in the first place? Are these shotgun bracelets she's wearing?"

Cyan brushed a strand of hair behind her ear and handed Yang a cup of something warm, "Here, drink this."

Standing just behind Yang's chair, Blake watched her partner accept the steaming drink from Cyan with both hands - the familiar scent of black tea rising from the pale pink mug. One dark eyebrow quirked as the brawler flashed the young woman a winning smile before downing the scalding hot beverage in one shot.

"They're shotgun gauntlets, actually," Blake addressed the curious physician rather than rolling her eyes at her partner. "We had to get up close and personal with a Liliac for research purposes." Taking care to avoid the nasty slash on her partner's neck, Blake laid a hand on Yang's shoulder, fondness creeping into her tone. "This one is very hands-on in her approach."

"Which is a nice way of saying she didn't think to wait and reset the trap," Weiss tossed her hair back over her shoulder. Ruby ducked, nearly getting a face full of it.

"Weiss, it would've attacked us," the younger girl chided her icy partner.

"And we would have killed it," the heiress glared at her, "The end. No injuries to speak of."

"And not a single scrap of research to speak of either," Blake replied, leveling an irked gaze at Weiss. "At least this way we've made significant headway with our mission. Not to mention, if we'd reset the trap, there's always the chance it could have been _you_ sporting these injuries."

"Because I would definitely try to hold onto a live Grimm. With my bare hands." Weiss deadpanned. She swung an arm in an open-handed gesture towards Yang, " _Research_ isn't worth losing your hearing over."

"Okay, okay," Ruby shifted in her seat, feeling more and more guilty about not having stopped everything to take care of Yang, "So it didn't work out exactly. She'll be okay," she grimaced at her sister, "Probably? But yeah, actually the grabbing it with your hands thing was maybe a bad idea."

Curious amethyst eyes blinked at Ruby, stealing quick glances at Weiss and Blake as well before returning to watch the younger girl's expression darken. The exact words were missing, but it was painfully clear none of her teammates were pleased. And the look on her little sister's face - that one Yang knew by heart.

It was that same look Ruby gave her every single time the brawler had emerged from a scuffle brandishing a victory claimed only inches shy of defeat. The look that, whenever she returned to her sister's side, told her she might have come just a little too close to never returning at all.

Yang placed her empty mug on the table with a dull _thud_ , taking a moment to appreciate the feeling of solid ceramic hitting thick tablecloth linens in lieu of hearing it. She placed a hand over Ruby's and squeezed. "Hey, what's that face for? There's nothing..." A spell of lightheadedness stripped the remainder of Yang's sentence away, nearly sending her face-first into the table if not for Blake's sudden grip on her shoulders.

The startled Faunus held her partner upright, a pit of dread opening up in her stomach as Yang, hunched over, dazed, and still gripping Ruby's hand, burst into flames.


	8. Mutual what!

_Yang, hunched over, dazed, and still gripping Ruby's hand, burst into flames._

A tangle of sounds- sharp cries of surprise and the clatter of abandoned chairs- followed as Curtis threw himself back and Weiss yanked Ruby out of her seat by her sleeve and collar.

"Hey, let go!" Ruby protested, shoving to get away from her partner.

Weiss tightened her grip, her arm around the struggling teen's waist to keep her clear of her sister's flames. She spat accusations at Curtis and Cyan, "You! Are you insane? What did you do? She's on _fire_. _Blake_."

Acting on instinct, Blake had thrown her arms around her human torch of a partner, quickly pulling the brawler's dead weight away from the table, but not quite fast enough to keep the tablecloth from catching fire. With one swift kick, she knocked Yang's chair out from underneath her before it could catch fire as well, gently guiding the disoriented blonde to sit in front of her on the ground, thankful for the stone tile flooring beneath them.

Shaky fingers gripped Yang's arms as Blake leaned forward, trying to catch her partner's eyes through her burning semblance. She'd only seen Yang's semblance act up like this once before, and Grimm toxins were not high on her list of things she wanted to encounter ever again.

"Yang - what's going on?! Say something!" A muffled groan was the only response Blake received as Yang hunched forward, burying her face in the Faunus's shoulder. Blake whipped her head around, eyes as wild as her partner's flames dancing harmlessly around her. "Someone get water!"

Ruby used her semblance to slip free, sending Weiss tumbling to the tile floor with an armful of rose petals.

Cyan was already fetching a pot from under the counter. Ruby snatched it from her hands, dropping it in the sink and cutting the tap on full blast. She urged the pot to fill faster, "C'mon, c'mon."

"Here," the other girl whipped a dish towel off the oven handle. Ruby dunked it and threw it to Blake.

With one hand, Blake snatched the towel out of the air and hurriedly draped it over Yang's head. For a moment, it seemed like the dampened fabric was helping the brawler start to cool off. Then it began to steam. The minuscule amount of water trapped in the towel evaporated in seconds, unable to keep up with the creeping intensity of the flames beneath it.

Stifling a curse, Blake grabbed the now-smoking dish towel and tossed it aside, instead wrapping her arms around her partner's shoulders and squeezing, as if she could will the flames away with a hug. She felt Yang push against her, muttering something unintelligible as she tried to get to her feet, but Blake held fast, determined to keep the brawler safely on the floor and away from anything flammable.

Ruby lost patience altogether and dumped the remnants of the tea from the stove top into the pot of cold water, and upended the mix over her blazing sister.

The sharp _hiss_ of water meeting flame met her ears, and hot steam billowed up, catching her full in the face. Weiss wrenched the pot away from her hands to refill it while Ruby coughed and sputtered, feeling suddenly very strange. The young team leader reeled back against the table, shedding rose petals. She looked at her hands. They glowed a soft, steady red- her aura? "W-what?"

"It's the tea," Cyan choked, "It's supposed to stimulate the healing properties of-" she broke off, coughing.

Not caring much about the steam after a face-full of water, Blake wiped her eyes and pulled back to get a better look at her equally sopping partner. Despite looking as though she'd just climbed out of a pool, the brawler continued to smolder, small licks of flame still bursting forth from her skin here and there. Blake tilted Yang's face upwards with one hand, marveling at the thin lines where the brawler's cuts had already begun to heal over.

She watched like a hawk as her partner squinted - glassy amethyst eyes clearing further each time she blinked. "I think she's coming around... One more should do it. And Weiss-" Blake set her jaw, stealing a glance in the heiress's direction, "make this one ice cold."

Weiss rolled her eyes and poured the pot of tap water over her two sopping teammates. Her brow furrowed as she noticed the lack of burn marks on the bare portions of Blake's arms.

The first bout of steam suffused the air with a pleasant herbal scent. Ruby sprang to her waking sister's side, still sporting a halo of crimson light about her. Words tumbled out of her mouth, "Yang, are you okay? Er, Blake, are _you_ okay? Are you both okay?"

"I'm fine," Blake sat back with a short sigh of relief, keeping a close eye on her partner.

Yang was shaking her head, pausing to rub her eyes. "Ugh. What a rush." With one last exaggerated blink, the brawler looked around, bewildered eyes wandering from the singed table cloth and upended chairs, to Weiss holding a dripping pot, down to herself and Blake, soaking wet, then finally over to her unusually luminescent little sister. "Wow, uh," Yang tried to wipe away the water blurring her view, but only succeeded in making it worse, "You ok sis? You're kind of glowing."

"Um..." Ruby gave Yang a once-over. Her sister's hair was white-gold. Wisps of steam rose from her clothes and skin. Beside her, Blake emanated bits of shadow.

Cyan let slip a bout of laughter, her every movement edged in blue.

Weiss's aura gleamed, soft and gentle and white. She dropped the steel pot back into the sink with a resounding _clang_. "This is _not_ funny."

Curtis was beating at the smoldering tablecloth with a potholder. Ruby grinned a lopsided trying-really-hard-not-to grin, "Well, it's _kind_ of funny."

"I'm sorry. I had no idea she'd have such a strong reaction," Cyan opened a drawer and passed another towel to Blake. "On the bright side, this bodes well for her hearing."

"It bodes less well for my tablecloth," Curtis examined the singed fabric with an air of resignation. His aura didn't seem to glow like the others, but then he was farthest from the action at the time. His narrow shoulders slumped and he gestured to a clipboard on the wall, "Remind me to make you fill out the forms next time."

The top yes/no checkbox question was _Do you have a volatile semblance at all likely to react to medication?_

He made a few more recommendations, mostly common sense about avoiding extremely loud noises and bat-wrangling without proper equipment. Cyan offered to let them spend the rest of the night, but the clinic only had beds and the mattresses were thin and the couch in the front room was short, even for Weiss.

Ruby leaned close to consult her sister, worry in her silver eyes, "Think you can make it back to the cabin?"

Yang leaned in the rest of the way, pressing her forehead to Ruby's and smiling. "... What?"

Blake rolled her eyes at the sisters, allowing herself a small half-smile. Yang's cuts were nearly invisible, and the heat from her semblance had already dried her hair and clothes, but on a field mission where Grimm could attack at any moment, they would have to keep a close eye on her until her hearing returned.

After making sure that Yang was indeed capable of walking, if a little wobbly, and only after Yang insisted she help Blake dry off with an impromptu flaming bearhug that nearly gave Weiss a heart attack, the four finally bid their thanks and farewells to a surprisingly alert Cyan and a very sleepy Curtis, promising to have the brawler check back in with them in two days.

The trip back to the cabin was unexpectedly lively, with Ruby constantly nudging her sister and pointing out random clusters of stars for which Yang promptly made up constellations and ridiculous backstories. Blake and Weiss served as the silent bookends of the line, each walking beside their respective partner, lost in their own winding trails of thought. Blake's centered on keeping watch - with her superior night vision, she had seen the bell tower in the distance.

If they were still going to keep watch, Yang was obviously out of the question, and Ruby... Blake eyed her team leader, noting each catch in her voice, each slip of her features, each telltale twitch of nervous body language. The younger girl wasn't that great at hiding her worry for her older sister. As they neared the cabin, Blake reached across behind Yang to tap Ruby's shoulder.

"Ruby. Weiss and I can keep watch this evening."

"Huh?" Ruby tugged her cloak a little closer at the collar, "Oh, keeping watch. Right. Um..." her sister couldn't hear, and it was kind of her fault- she was the leader and she'd approved the plan, after all. Taking care of her team always took first priority, and taking care of Yang, well... Ruby rubbed her neck, turning to her partner, "Do you mind, Weiss?"

"Of course not," the heiress said without breaking stride. Her hair was a cascade of silver when the moon emerged from the clouds beginning to crowd the open patch of sky, "Just don't forget to write up your report for Beacon. I'll proofread it in the morning."

The dark-haired girl gave a nervous laugh and started thinking of ways to make Yang getting mauled in the face and losing her hearing not sound quite so bad. She dragged her boots with the weight of that particular responsibility.

They arrived back at the cabin in short order. Ruby shed her boots and steered Yang towards the single small bathroom to get cleaned up. "C'mon, sis, you've still got some dried blood in your hair and it's gross."

Meanwhile, Weiss collected her sleeping gear off the couch and waited for Blake to retrieve her own from upstairs. Ruby had informed her that she and Yang had run into the head of the watch in the afternoon while gathering supplies for the ill-fated bat trap and had been fully approved for participation at the bell tower.

Weiss had a suspicion that the go-ahead had been somewhat reluctant when it came to her personally, but if Ruby said it was fine, it would probably be fine. The heiress shifted her bedroll to get a better grip. Her performance certainly wasn't going to give anyone any grounds for objections. "Blake, are you coming?"

With one last parting half-smile and wave as the sisters ducked into the bathroom, Blake grabbed her bedroll and a simple black capelet coat from her bag, pulling the heavy fabric around her shoulders as she descended the stairs to stand beside Weiss. "Let's go."

* * *

The streets were dark and quiet. Much more so without the talkative sisters. Many of the stars had vanished from overhead. Somewhere a dog barked. The trees higher up among the crags whispered, stirring in a breeze that didn't reach the valley floor. The ground was hard, beginning to set in a serious freeze. Weiss took a deep breath, drinking in the night air, testing it. It smelled like snow.

Many of the streetlamps had been put out for the night, but James Point was a small town, so navigating was simple. They reached the bell tower without incident.

The heiress paused, her hand on the vertical bar of iron that served as the imposing structure's front door handle. She turned to Blake in the low light of the lamp at the corner, "Can I ask you something?"

Blake's head tilted. "Of course."

"Back at the clinic, when Yang's semblance 'flared up'," Weiss made air quotations. She frowned, searching Blake's face in the shadows, "... you didn't get burned."

Silence stretched between the two as Blake considered her reply. It had never been expressly secret that her partner's semblance was no longer a threat to her (and hadn't been a threat to Ruby probably ever), but she knew Yang was hesitant to mention it for fear of making Weiss feel left out. Still, Blake knew how the heiress valued honesty, and since she was asking directly...

"Technically, that's not a question," Blake finally retorted, the hint of a smile pulling at the edge of her lips. "But you're right," her eyes drifted sideways, staring off into the distance. "Yang's semblance hasn't affected me for a while now."

The heiress dropped her hand from the door at the top of the steps and crossed her arms, "I hope that's not the entirety of the explanation you're going to give after what happened tonight. I thought you were being burned alive."

Blake cringed at that. "Sorry, Weiss. That... must have looked pretty bad." She crossed her arms as well, more out of an attempt to keep her bare fingers warm and out of the biting wind than as a testament to her mood. Gloves really would have been a good thing to bring. Or Yang... Blake mentally slapped herself. Now was not the time to pine for her personal human space heater.

It was just a bit of cold. She could handle it. Blake quietly thanked the darkness for hiding whatever blush might be creeping across her cheeks as she collected herself. "As far as an explanation, well, I don't really know _how_ it works. When Yang tried to explain it..." her voice trailed off as she tried to remember her partner's exact words.

 _It looks like you're part of the family now, Blake..._ A tiny crease appeared between Blake's brows as they furrowed in thought. What did that actually _mean_? She hadn't really thought to ask for further clarification at the time, and bringing it up after the fact would have only dredged up memories of an extremely unpleasant time.

At least, she assumed that was why Yang had never once brought it up again. That pesky blush returned as Blake did her best to avoid thinking about any other possible implications. "She... didn't explain it well. My best guess is it has something to do with... mutual affection?"

"Mutual _affection_?" Was Blake blushing? Weiss leaned to get a better angle and almost fell of the stairs. She recovered her footing and dignity at once, though she could feel heat rising to her face to mirror her teammate's flush.

Weiss decided to blame her own blush on the cold and soldiered on. "How do you want me to interpret that exactly? Does Ruby know about this?" she gestured with one hand to encompass the whole situation- Blake, the not-burning, the 'mutual affection'.

She recalled the way the Faunus had been hanging off of Yang the previous evening. Hadn't those two spent the _entire night_ together back at the cabin? Weiss scowled to distract from the deepening shade of red painted across her features.

The darkness couldn't hide the heiress's flush from Blake's night vision, throwing the already-embarrassed Faunus into a slight panic. "Weiss, no, it's not... At least I don't think- I... we..." She froze, not from the cold, but from sheer mortification. Was she really having this discussion with _Weiss Schnee?_ The heiress did bring up a good point though. _Did_ Ruby know she wasn't the only one immune to Yang's flames now? ...Or that her big sister was an _incorrigible flirt?_

Wrangling her features into a relatively calm expression, Blake slowly took in a deep lungful of air that was just a bit icier than she normally preferred, imagining her nerves as the small white puff of breath gently drifting away and disappearing into the night as she exhaled. She shifted her two armed grip on her bedroll over to one arm, bringing her hand to cover her burning face, exchanging some heat to her icy fingers in the process. "I'm not sure... But if you really want to talk about this can we please at least do it inside, and not out here in the cold?"

"Are you kidding? It's a bell tower. There's no heat," besides, Blake was avoiding her gaze, bow flat against her head, and _that_ was a rare sight indeed. Weiss went so far as to stand with her back against the door in case the other girl had any more ideas of retreating inside. She continued the interrogation, mouth quirking at one edge, "So you're saying you're not sure about Ruby? Or you're not sure what kind of mutual affection you and Yang have? I take it nothing's official."

" _No-nothing-is-official,_ " Blake's tone reached a pitch far higher than her usual low register. She stole a glance at Weiss through her fingers, wishing the ground would open up and swallow her whole when she caught the beginnings of a smirk on the heiress's face. "Ruby probably knows, I guess, and do we _have_ to talk about this _right now?"_

"So Ruby _knows_ ," Weiss pressed her advantage, merciless, ice-blue eyes sly and full of mirth as she brushed a loose strand of hair back behind her ear. "Are you sure? Did Yang tell her? I'm pretty sure I would have noticed before Ruby."

For a fleeting moment, Blake considered turning and simply walking away, but she had run from Weiss once before, and it hadn't gotten her anywhere.

" _Weiss Schnee._ " Blake growled, stepping forward and bringing herself face-to-face with her ruthless teammate, bearing a scowl that could rival one of the heiress's own. "Are you going to stand there and tease me all night, or are we going to go keep watch like respectable huntresses?"

The use of Weiss's full name had more of a sharpening than an intimidating effect on the young heiress. This was to be expected: the Schnee family name was one to be respected and feared... by others. Weiss raised her chin a fraction of an inch as Blake took her stand on the stair below her own and met the Faunus's scowl evenly.

"You're right, Blake," Weiss wielded the other girl's name with a light touch, as if it were made of crystal. She opened the door and held it, her amusement unfaltering, "We should get to work. Besides, I can stand and tease you just as easily at the top of the tower."

"And I can continue to _ignore_ you just as easily," Blake muttered darkly as she stormed past her treacherous teammate and up the spiraling staircase. Honestly, why was Weiss so interested in this particular topic anyway? Surely the heiress had better things to do than meddle in - Blake froze. Her Faunus ears twitched forward, picking up a distinct sound even through the echoes of her heavy footsteps. A distinct,very unlikely, and very confusing sound.

Curiosity pulled her up the stairs two at a time, leading her to the wooden trap door that she threw open without a second thought, where she came face to face with... an orange ball of fluff. The ball of fluff mewed at Blake, bright blue eyes staring up into utterly perplexed amber. Her ears weren't playing tricks - it was a kitten.

"Ouch," said a voice behind Blake. Jack, the blonde-ish boy who had carried Weiss's bags their first day, held his head, grimacing. He had circles under his eyes and wore a thick scarf tucked into his coat. It looked like the trap door had knocked into him when he was bending over, or something. He lifted the door a little and a second kitten scurried out before he met Blake's gaze, "Uh. Hi?"

"Blake what-" Weiss checked at the top of the stairs. She had a hand on Myrtenaster, because Blake running usually meant trouble. Now she stared in open skepticism at the pair of fluffballs exploring the piles of junk shoved up against the outer walls. "... are those kittens?"

"Yeah, I, uh, kind of brought them up. I figured you could use some company on watch," the boy continued to muss his hair and grinned uncertainly at the two huntresses-in-training.

Blake had stopped listening the instant she caught sight of a second kitten, small, gray, and currently trying to tackle the orange one to the floor from its high perch on the junkpile. Hopelessly charmed at first sight, she started heading in their direction when she spotted a _third_ one - a tuxedo kitten curled up inside a long-since-emptied-out can of what was probably once lamp oil. Weiss and teasing and pretty much all else were stricken from her thoughts, replaced with the desire to simply hug a kitten. Her path was intercepted when the gray kitten suddenly made a beeline for her legs.

"Well hello there," Blake stooped down and reached a hand out, not even bothering to hide her smile as the tiny creature scrambled up her arm, pinprick claws digging into the thick fabric of her coat for purchase. The kitten's series of tiny mews as it reached Blake's shoulder nearly stopped the Faunus's heart, and she tilted her head just slightly to nuzzle its soft fur. When the mewing turning into purring, it took everything she had not to purr right back. "It's nice to meet you too."

The heiress crossed her arms tight over her chest, lecturing Jack up and down for bringing such an obvious distraction to a job requiring nothing short of _unwavering_ vigilance. She ignored the gray kitten climbing Blake, the black-and-white kitten curled up in the tin can, the orange kitten with its bright eyes and tiny tail exploring the edge of the trap door. But its whiskers were so little and cute... she tore her attention away, back to the shrinking watchman, "Honestly, you... you..."

The orange kitten tumbled off the landing, down onto the top step by Weiss's boots.

"... should I...?" Jack made a motion to collect the kittens up and go.

"... no. Yes. We're relieving you," the white-haired girl pinched the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger. "Just leave."

"The kittens can stay though," Blake chimed in, heading back over to Weiss's side. "We could use some company during our watch," she gently plucked the mewing gray bundle of fuzz from her own shoulder, placing it on the heiress's instead. "Right?"

Emerald green eyes honed in on ice-blue, one tiny paw reaching out to bat at Weiss's earring.

The white-haired girl froze, opening her mouth and snapping it shut again as the kitten clung to her coat. It took her a second to regain the power of speech and bring it and an icy glare to bear on Jack, "You. Gone. Now. We're more than equipped to handle the rest of the watch."

The effect of her dismissal was somewhat diminished by the gray kitten toying with her left earring. Her eye twitched in the small light of the lantern Jack had retrieved from the edge of the wall.

"Right. Uh, yeah," he said, hopping down through the trap door so Weiss didn't have to move out of the way. "Just let the kits' mom up if she comes yowling."

The heiress remained rigid until she heard the heavy thump of the bell tower's oaken doors being opened and shut. Then she gathered the ball of fuzz from her shoulder to her arms. She crouched down so the kitten wasn't so high off the ground, absolutely melting as she addressed the kitten, "Hi. Hi~ Are you so sweet? Are you? Look at you and your little paws~"

It wasn't often her human cactus of a teammate showed this far sweeter side of herself, and Blake found she quite enjoyed seeing it now that the sheer outpouring of affection wasn't being aimed at some suspicious, overly-friendly mailbox dog. With a knowing smile, she crouched down as well to scoop up the orange kitten trying and failing to scale Weiss's legs, using one of its 'little paws' to boop the preoccupied heiress's nose. "If only you were as nice to people as you are to animals."

Weiss half-glared at Blake and accepted the orange kitten into her arms.

"Maybe if people were more like animals, I would be," she scratched the gray kitten's ears, a smile sneaking across her face as the tiny creature closed its eyes and rattled with kitten purrs. The little ball of fuzz didn't care about her name or her status as a Schnee. It wouldn't lie or pretend, wouldn't hold her to a complicated set of expectations. It was simply a kitten who must feel warm and safe enough to stay in her arms and let her scratch its ears for the time being, and would soon be wanting food or its mother and, well, that was that.

A breeze found its way down the steep mountainside, gusting flakes of snow into the open bell tower. They were barely visible in the burnt-orange light from the street lamps below.

The heiress rose, still cradling the two bundles of fur, "We should be keeping watch."

A strange look overtook Blake's features as she watched Weiss head over to the edge of the junkpile, kittens in hand. _If people were more like animals?..._ The raven-haired girl put a hand to her face, wincing for only a moment at the coldness of her own fingers.

Sometimes she seriously wondered if Weiss occasionally forgot about her Faunus heritage, or if she was just _that_ unaccustomed to thinking about how her words might come across to one. Still, the other girl had once expressed a desire to learn, so it would be a disservice to let such a remarkably awkward offhand comment fly.

Blake followed Weiss's lead, heading towards the half-wall of the open tower and going straight for the sleeping kitten inside the oil can, effectively ignoring the comment about keeping watch as she picked up and cradled the slowly awakening black and white kitten in her arms. It blearily opened one yellow eye and mewed in appreciation of the newfound warmth of Blake's arms.

"Hm, that's funny," the Faunus laid a kiss to the small creature's nose - a creature she had, at one time, hated with a fervor for being a representation of the unique source of discrimination she faced, but also a creature she had grown to love, as she grew to realize the problem lay not with herself, but in those that were blinded by prejudice. Weiss's questioning gaze pulled her from her reverie, and the edge of her lips quirked as she pointedly flicked one of her Faunus ears beneath her bow. "I've found that the closer your kinship with animals, generally the _worse_ your treatment becomes."

Wiess colored, turning to survey the streets below so Blake wouldn't see the depth of her mortification. "That's not what I... I just meant that they're..." she held the kittens in her arms a little closer, shielding them from the chill of the wind and lightly falling snow. Her voice was soft, "Well, you don't have to hide anything from them, is all."

"True," Blake admitted, her steps smooth and efficient as she came to stand beside Weiss, wondering briefly at just how much of the city her human teammate could see through the snow-riddled darkness. The kitten in Blake's arms had already fallen back asleep, spurring the Faunus to keep her voice low, amber eyes alight with curiosity as she cast a sidelong glance at the subdued heiress. "What exactly are you hiding, Weiss?"

The heiress remained silent, watching the snow, remembering the night she left home for Beacon. It had snowed then, too. The cold was sharp in her lungs and her breath hung as a mist in the air when at last she sighed, "Let's talk about something more important, like who takes first watch. We should be able to get by with one shift apiece- it's practically morning, after all."

In a rare moment of graciousness, Blake let the matter drop, _and_ offered to take first watch, handing Weiss the final kitten and watching with a half-smile as the heiress settled down on her bedroll with the three balls of warmth - on the other side of the tower for some reason - sleep taking her shortly thereafter.

* * *

 **A/N: ... or so Blake thought, while in reality Weiss was still kicking herself over that people and animals comment.** **OUCH, but at least no one's on fire!**

 **Tune in next week for more of our special brand of awkwardness/mayhem/personal injuries!**

 **\- Fiercesomest**


	9. Late Night Worries

**A/N: Fiercesomest here-Defenestrator is busy moving to a new apartment this week, so that's cool. Enjoy the chapter!**

 **-Fiercesomest**

* * *

Back at the cabin, Ruby settled into Blake's bed, snuggling up with one of the pillows and a bunch of blankets. It was cold- almost as cold inside as outside- and she couldn't stop thinking over what had happened since they'd gotten to James Point. There was that whole mess with Weiss and the scary miner guy, and Blake somehow winding up drunk or something, and now the accident with Yang and the Grimm Bat.

Ruby cringed, burying her face in the red pillow she'd claimed. Well, at least they hadn't topped Mountain Glen. Though technically falling into that hole and discovering the bad guys' hideout had turned out totally fine. Beacon's students and huntresses had made quick work of the Grimm Torchwick's train had busted into the city, and since then the city had been as peaceful as ever- more so without all of Torchwick's cronies robbing Dust shops right and left.

Right. So team-wise, the goal of this mission was the same as every other mission: no major property damage and no lasting bodily injuries. The latter condition was kind of in question at the moment... but it would probably be fine. The teen propped herself up on her elbows then, whispering to her sister in the other bed, "Hey Yang, can you hear yet?"

Movement in the corner of her eye broke Yang's concentration, causing her to nearly drop one of the small chips she was currently extracting from inside her scroll. Ruby's admittedly brilliant idea to simply text things to each other didn't pan out when they discovered that the Liliac's sonic blast had fried Yang's scroll just as badly as her hearing.

Taking a moment to rub the sleep from her eyes, Yang looked up from her current assigned project - carefully gutting the small piece of technology so Ruby could look over each of the pieces in the morning - and caught her sister's questioning gaze. She returned it with an easy smile. "Can't sleep?"

"I'm taking that as a no," Ruby dropped back to her pillow, her chin sinking in the soft fabric. "Annnnnd you know it's way after midnight," she scooted up a bit and reached for the lamp set between the beds, catching the pull string for a second to show Yang her intentions, "I'm going to turn out the lights on you if you don't quit soon."

Amethyst eyes tracked Ruby's motions. "Oh, you _want_ to sleep. Okay," Yang carefully placed her scroll, its circuit board, and the chips she'd managed to pull out, safely in the orange scarf laid out on her bed before her, wrapped them all up into one neat bundle, and set it beside the very lamp Ruby was threatening to turn off.

After dusting her hands together, Yang quietly slid out of her covers on to the floor and crouched, grinning up at her little sister for only a split second before exclaiming, " _Hugs first!_ " and pouncing.

"Agh!" Ruby collapsed into the pile of pillows on her bed and flailed to escape the surprise attack, "Treachery! I should have known," she laughed, twitching as Yang hit a ticklish spot and mounting a counterattack of her own against the blonde's ribcage.

"Hey now!" Erupting in giggles, Yang tried to twist away from Ruby's prodding fingers, caught off-guard by the sudden retaliation. "Think you can take _me,_ huh?!" She reared up, smirked, and dove back down, descending upon the younger girl with a counter-counterattack aimed straight for the neck and ears, sparking a patented Rose vs. Xiao Long Tickle Fight to the Death. One that lasted approximately 20 seconds, and did not, in fact, end in fatality.

Instead, exhaustion from the day's events finally set in, and Yang ceased her attack, arms shifting from seeking out Ruby's weak points to wrapping her up in a bearhug. "OK ok, you win." She placed a kiss to the top of her still-squirming little sister's head. "But only because I'm tired~"

"Yaaaaaang," Ruby ducked to try to avoid the kiss but her big sister was so _heavy_. Not that Ruby was a lightweight, being made almost entirely of whipcord muscle after her years with Crescent Rose, but Yang was like a _mountain_ pinning her to the bed. The younger girl pushed Yang up as far as she could, "Rrrrrrrrg, go to your own bed."

"Oh, what's this? Am I being banished?" Yang allowed herself to be pushed back into a sitting position, the exasperated smile on Ruby's face cementing her own. Mission accomplished. "Well, OK then," she swung herself off of her little sister, straightening out her tank top and shorts before rolling back into the other bed and slipping under her own sheets. "If you get cold, you know where I am~"

"I'm going to draw on your face if I wake up before you," Ruby chirped back, blowing hair out of her eyes and reaching for the light. Having a sister who was completely deaf could be slightly entertaining... so long as the lack of hearing wore off when they needed to fight stuff.

She clicked the light off, and the room went black except for the residual glow of Yang's boosted aura. Her hair shimmered like near-molten gold. Ruby gave her a last worried glance and snuggled back down among the pillows on her bed. It didn't take long for her to drift off to sleep.

Yang simply remained motionless, watching the silent rise and fall of Ruby's side, illuminated by her aura's soft glow. Granted, _everything_ was silent for the brawler as she lay, wide awake, seemingly incapable of attaining the peaceful respite of unconsciousness.

Exhaustion apparently didn't guarantee safe passage aboard the ship to dreamland. Not when Yang's thoughts refused to stop sprinting in circles, and especially not when she could almost physically feel the pure, suffocating quiet of her surroundings.

There was no rustle of cloth when her sister rolled over onto her back, no whisper of wind to accompany the shadows of the trees dancing across the wall, not even the faintest creak of the bedsprings when she finally sat upright what felt like _hours_ later - though a cursory check of the digital clock on the nightstand revealed it had actually only been just shy of one.

"...Ruby?" Yang whispered, unable to hear even her own voice, eyes locked on the faint outline of her little sister in the nearly diminished light of her overcharged aura. She waited - but she saw no response.

Shrouded in the darkness left behind by her aura's return to normal levels and the clouds obscuring the moon and stars, the brawler slipped out of her bed, vanishing down the stairs.

Surrounded by the soft sounds of falling snow, Blake peered through the darkness, dutifully scanning the skyline, but still occasionally stealing glances at her teammate. She could understand where Weiss was coming from. The desire to be open with others, to be yourself, not have to put up any pretense... Blake reached up and idly straightened her bow. Maybe, with the help of their partners, both she and Weiss would be able to do that someday...

Her thoughts were interrupted by a quick buzz from her scroll. Blake pulled the small device from her coat pocket - it was a message from Ruby.

 _Hey Blake - are you up?_

Concern pooled in her stomach - why was Ruby sending her a message in the middle of the night? Had something happened? Her reply was swift. _Yes, it's my turn on watch. But what are you doing awake at this hour? Is everything OK?_

 _Blake, it's me._

One dark eyebrow quirked. _Yang?_

 _I can't sleep._

Blake couldn't help but sigh in relief, a half-smirk pulling at her lips as she sent a teasing reply. _Did you have too much caffeine?_

 _haha. says the girl whose veins are made of tea._

Amber eyes rolled in amusement at the spammed tiny icon of a teacup that bookended Yang's reply. _Herbal teas often have little to no caffeine._ She shot back, adding a second message to tease, _Did you forget to charge your scroll?_

 _mine's straight up fried._ The brawler's explanation ended with a tiny bonfire and an explosion. _pretty sure it was that lilything's screeching._

Blake frowned at the news. Being down one communication device while out in the field was not ideal, and she was fairly certain no one in this town was especially versed in handheld technologies. _Can Ruby fix it?_

 _dunno. she's asleep._

Taking a quick glance at the time – 2am – Blake sighed and wrote back, _You should be asleep too._ For a long while, no reply came, and just when Blake was convinced Yang had gone back to bed, or drifted off, her scroll blipped with another message.

 _it's too quiet._

That wiped the smile right off of Blake's face. She stared at the short, dispirited sentence for a long while, concern marring her features. For someone who had just completely lost one of her senses Yang _had_ seemed suspiciously nonchalant the entire evening... _Can you hear anything at all?_

 _no._

The brawler wasn't even using emoticons at this point. That wasn't a good sign. Blake took a moment to consider her reply, choosing each word with care. _Knowing how quickly you heal, it'll only be for a day or two, I bet._

She waited, worry gnawing at her when Yang's reply took just as long.

 _sorry, I finally get some peace and quiet and all I can do is complain._

The brawler's attempt at a joke hit a sour note with the Faunus. Even through the static black and white letters on a small screen she could feel her partner hurting. _Don't worry, the doctor said your hearing would eventually come back_

Her valiant effort to be encouraging seemed to fall flat - no reply came for so long that the Faunus began to worry she'd said something wrong. Blake's eyes reluctantly returned to scanning the skyline, hoping Yang had simply fallen asleep.

She jumped when her scroll buzzed again.

 _what if it doesn't?_

Four simple words sank Blake's heart. She scoured her thoughts for a bit of positivity. _That tea they gave you was supposed to really help - you caught_ fire _it was so strong_. _It might just take a little while._

 _but what if it doesn't?_

Panic started to set in. This wasn't like Yang at all – the brawler was optimistic to a fault, and on top of that had a bad habit of hiding her worries from others. Now, here her partner was bearing her fears to her and Blake felt as though she was failing miserably at being even remotely reassuring.

Yang was clearly caught up in a different set of what-ifs - those that presumed a permanent loss. Determined to provide some sense of comfort, the Faunus shifted gears to match, her next reply coming with surprising ease. _Then, we'll figure it out. We'll work out some kind of system. Learn new ways to fight. Whatever it takes._

A short pause preceded Yang's reply.

 _we? you'd keep me as a partner?_

Amber eyes rolled. _Seriously? Of course. When I chose you back during initiation, it's because I thought we would work well with one another - and we do. So whatever happens, we'll face it together._

 _…you chose me?_

Blake's thoughts halted, a treacherous blush spreading across her cheeks. She had _not_ meant to reveal that particular piece of information. With a sigh, she resigned herself to the slip, opting for honesty as the best policy. _I might have stalked a few options in the Emerald Forest for a bit. When I saw you take down an Ursa with your fists... well, how could I resist?_

 _you're ridiculous, Blakey. I love you._

Blake nearly dropped her scroll - sure now that her face could function as a beacon for lost travelers in the snow. She stared wide-eyed at those three simple words glaring out from the backlit screen, branding her like a hot-iron. Weiss's teasing lilt played through her head _"I take it nothing's official~"_

Shaking her head to clear it, Blake ran a hand down her face. This was Yang, extremely affectionate in both words and actions – she probably said things like that to close friends all the time... Just an off-hand remark. Nothing to fret over… Though she couldn't deny how nice it felt to hear. Even just as a message by scroll. _And you're going to be just fine – so go back to sleep._

Yang's reply arrived fairly quickly.

 _I think I might actually be able to now. thanks for letting me whine at you._

Success - a quiet sigh escaped Blake's lips. _Anytime._

 _…I'm deleting all of these messages by the way._

The unspoken message was loud and clear: this conversation never happened. _Me too. See you tomorrow._

 _looking forward to it. ;)_

Blake unceremoniously shoved her scroll back into her pocket, not bothering to dignify the flirtatious winky-face and heart icons with a response. In roughly an hour she would wake Weiss, and get a bit of sleep herself. For now though, she watched over the town, a small smile pulling at the edge of her lips.

* * *

The light was funny.

Ruby stared at the square of bleached sunlight on the floor of the loft, uncomprehending. That color meant something, and so did the crisp taste in the air, but she couldn't remember what. She ducked her head back under the covers, gathering up the warmth before venturing out of her blanket cocoon.

"Cold, cold, cold," she hopped on one leg to save at least one foot from the icy wooden floorboards as she exchanged her sleeping shirt for her long-sleeved blouse and corset.

Yang was missing. She noticed as she pulled on an extra pair of leggings and dragged her cloak off the bedpost where she'd hung it the night before. What time was it? She searched around the beside table for her scroll but found only the dissembled pieces of her sister's.

Ruby picked up a couple bits of circuitry, examining them. If something had just gotten knocked loose, she could take a soldering gun to it, but most likely something'd been fried. Majorly so. They'd have to order new parts when they got back to Beacon if they wanted to fix it, and even then Ruby wasn't that good with electronics. (She tended to fare better with moving parts and explosives and stuff.) Still, if there was a book or a guide online or something she could probably figure it out.

Ruby shook her head and fumbled the bits and pieces back to their places by the lamp, muttering, "Okay. Not distracted."

Finding Yang turned out to be pretty easy. Ruby leaned over the railing and spotted the blonde passed out on the couch down by the fireplace. Ruby's scroll was on the floor beside her hand.

She crept downstairs, stealthy in stocking feet, intent on her pack and the markers therein. The bright white outside the front window caught her eye, though, and Ruby backed up so fast she almost tripped over the edge of her cloak.

Snow!

The entire valley lay quiet, frosted white overnight. The dirt path had vanished, and the pines along the hillside were fringed with snow. The town itself was coming alive, smoke rising from chimneys and townsfolk out clearing the roads with shovels where the snow had piled up in drifts.

"Yang, wake up!" Ruby zipped to the couch, showering the slumbering girl with rose petals. She vaulted onto her stomach, shaking her shoulder, "C'mon, look, it snowed!"

As she spoke, footsteps sounded on the front porch. Ruby balanced herself with an arm on the back of the couch cushions as the door opened, admitting Weiss and Blake, who both stomped to get the snow off their shoes.

"Hey! What's wrong with you? Get off the couch," Weiss started to scold when she noticed the sisters in her chosen sleeping place. She had her arms crossed low over her stomach, and her face twisted with an odd expression before she could go on, "No, no wait, don't-" a clear, girlish laugh escaped her as a tiny gray fluffball squeezed up out of the collar of her white coat, mewing and gazing around the room with perked ears and wide blue eyes.

Shoes finally rid of snow, Blake stepped past Weiss, two kittens safely ensconced within her own coat as well. She reached into her pocket, revealing a squirming orange kitten which she handed to Ruby. She then plucked the lazy the tuxedo kitten from her other pocket, placing it gently on Yang's face just as the brawler's eyes fluttered open.

"Rise and shine," Blake leaned over the back of the couch, smiling down at her partner.

"... Am I still dreaming, or is there a kitten on my face," Yang whispered, trying to move her mouth as little as possible, lest she send the wobbly fluffball tumbling into the abyss of her hair. Amethyst locked with inquisitive yellow for only a moment, the former widening as the kitten took fate into its own paws, willingly leaping down off of Yang's face and curling up in the crook of her neck, safely buried in the brawler's wild yellow mane of hair. Yang clapped a hand to her mouth, stifling a squeal. It didn't matter if she still couldn't hear anything yet - any day that started with kittens was a good day.

"Where did they come from?" Ruby's silver eyes were awestruck. She cuddled the orange kitten under her chin.

"That boy brought them to the bell tower. The mother never came to find them, and who knows where he lives, so we thought- ow. _Ow_ ," Weiss detached the gray kitten's claws from her dangling earring and set it on top of the couch, scritching along its spine so its back arched and its tail stood up straight and happy. Remembering herself, she turned her focus back to Ruby, "... you get the idea. How's Yang?"

"Um..." Ruby shifted on her sister's stomach, addressing her, "How're you doing this morning? Want to be in charge of breakfast?"

Yang squinted up at her sister - distinctly catching what looked like the word "breakfast" on her lips. "Yes! Breakfast!" She threw an arm in the air, suddenly very serious. "I volunteer to cook."

Ruby exchanged a glance with the others. Had that been lip reading, or...? Either way, the team leader gave a solemn nod, "Offer accepted."

Breakfast ended up being a simple affair. Once Yang saw the snow Ruby was eagerly gesturing to, she caught the younger girl's excitement and just about leaped into the kitchen, starting on a familiar winter breakfast of cinnamon oatmeal, eggs, and whatever that strange purplish meat was. With Blake lending her a hand, and Weiss and Ruby on Kitten Patrol, it wasn't long before their small cabin was filled the smells of an unburnt, completely edible meal, soon followed by filled plates, filled cups, and a filled table.

After everyone was settled, Blake pulled out her scroll, ready to type shorthand notes for Yang as she turned to address Ruby. "So, what's the plan for today?"

Ruby's cup sloshed milk as she slammed it down on the table, clenching her free fist in the air, "Play in the snow!"

Weiss paused, a bite of oatmeal halfway to her mouth, "Did you write yesterday's report?"

Ruby shut her eyes and raised her fist higher, "Write-yesterday's-report-after-playing-in-the-snow!" She took a drink of milk, relaxing back into her seat, "Also we should probably try to talk to that angry miner guy again. I mean, he'll let us in if he sees we haven't done anything bad to his town, right?"

"I wouldn't hold my breath," the heiress stirred her bowl, frowning down at the patterns of cinnamon in her breakfast.

Ruby rubbed the back of her neck. Not to be discouraged so easily, she turned to Blake, "It's still worth a shot, though. Maybe?"

Blake looked up from her scroll, angling it so Yang could see the potential agenda of the day. "Certainly worth a shot." Provided they could keep Weiss from saying anything too... well, really anything at all. "But I'm less certain about... playing in snow." She typed a quick message for Yang - _Snow is cold. :(_ Her actual frown so closely matched the ridiculous frowny-face emoticon, Yang couldn't help but hunch forward with a hearty snort of laughter.

Ruby leaned halfway across the table to see Blake's message, "You've just got to play in it right. Then you won't feel cold."

"For once Ruby's correct," Weiss nodded from her place at the table, gesturing with her spoon, "With the right gear, you can certainly keep the cold out. It's all a matter of proper insulation and layering."

A slow grin snuck across the young team leader's face as she plunked back down in her chair, "... that's not exactly what I had in mind."


	10. Snowball Fright

" _Duck and cover_!" Ruby dove on top of Blake, taking shelter behind an upturned wheelbarrow as a flurry of icy missiles zinged past. She scooped snow into ammunition, propping herself on the Faunus's shoulders to peek over the rim of the wheelbarrow. A sharp _clang_ had her ducking back, yelling over her shoulder to the picket fence behind her, "Prepare the counter-attack!"

The skies were a clear winter blue, the sun pale and bright over the valley as the four huntresses-in-training and a bunch of the town kids faced off in a snow fight to end all snow fights. Ruby sputtered, wiping snow and ice bits from her face when a shot clipped the edge of the metal rim of her improvised hiding place. She called to the kids behind the fence, "You guys ready?"

On the other side of the narrow strip of field, Team Freezerburn and their minions were constructing a fortress.

"Yang, walls. Build _walls_ ," Weiss snarled and shoved at the fiery blonde to throw off her aim. Honestly, they needed a solid defense but her melted and refrozen balls of ice were going to kill some kid and _then_ where would they be?

"Hey! Watch it!" Yang watched her carefully crafted projectile arc wide to the left, completely missing Team Ladybug's metal barrier and landing harmlessly in a bush. "Weiss, what are you _doing?_ " Yang rounded on the other girl, blinking at her commanding gestures towards the beginnings of a wall constructed of snow.

"Oh, right, some defenses would be g-UGH-" the brawler took a snowball to the face, stumbling sideways as she spluttered, trying to keep her semblance from kicking in and melting what little they had built. She saw a flash of red duck down behind that blasted wheelbarrow. " _Ow -_ OK yes a wall, but payback FIRST." Grabbing another fistful of snow, at least, as much as she could in her unnaturally warm grip, she lobbed another half-snow-half-ice-ball at the upturned wheelbarrow.

"Nice shot, Ruby." Blake's smile at her comrade in arms was interrupted by a resounding _CLANK_ right beside her head that made all four of her ears ring. She eyed the dent that had appeared in their wheelbarrow. Her smile became a smirk. "I think you made her mad."

Ruby scooped some more snow from around the rim of their shelter, lying shoulder-to-shoulder with her teammate, her voice low, "That's the plan- we've got to distract her from building fortifications for Weiss or she'll do that melt-and-refreeze thing and their team'll have an impenetrable ice fortress," she peered through a rusted-out spot in the bed of the wheelbarrow at the progress Weiss and the village kids were making. Already there were rising towers and walls with square-ish parapets. Who would've thought you could build that much that _fast_? Ruby worried the edge of her glove with her teeth for a second, "... we could probably take it over, but..."

Meanwhile, Weiss paused from trying to corral Yang to dole out orders to her volunteer army, "You," she pointed to a dark-haired child missing one of her front teeth, "we need ammunition. Start piling it by the north tower. You, start curving the wall back. We don't want them flanking us."

"We need some more snow, Commander, ma'am," the boy, Jack, from the watchtower saluted her. Grass showed through what was left on the ground. Weiss summoned a white glyph, setting it at ground level and angling it in such a way that it shifted the snow overtop of it with an efficiency that would make a bulldozer look like an awkward, broken snow shovel.

A few snowballs pelted the ground near the wall, lobbed by Ruby and Blake's forces behind the picket fence. Weiss scoffed at the pathetic attack, and turned to make sure Yang wasn't doing anything crazy.

The brawler was standing stock still, icy snowball in hand, surveying the surrounding area of Team Ladybug's fortress. Her eyes narrowed into a devious smirk when she spotted exactly what she was looking for. She took careful, precise aim at her target - the stately tree standing over their wheelbarrow. "You'll regret the day you challenged TEAM FREEZERBURN," she shouted across the field as she flung her now-completely-ice-ball through the air.

Blake's ears perked at the challenge, as well as the following _CRACK_ of a tree branch being struck with something very hard - a very high branch, directly overhead - one that was now sending a growing cascade of freshly loosened powdery white tumbling down upon them at rapid speeds. With only seconds to spare, Blake shoved Ruby to safety, interrupting the younger girl's rapid-fire instructions to their squadron. The Faunus disappeared under a mountain of snow an instant later.

Blake poked her head out from the pile of snow - cold, wet, and very _very_ disgruntled. Her sullen gaze traveled to meet Ruby's. "Avenge me."

"Blake!" Ruby bolted upright, spitting snow. "Blake, noooooo!"

She pointed to her sister across the open field, "You'll pay for this!" Motioning to the crew of five, six, and seven-year-olds behind the fence, she yelled, " _Charge!"_

The little kids broke cover, laughing and racing to meet Team Freezerburn while Ruby covered them with her speed. Rose petals danced across the snow as she spiked down snowball after snowball, defending her team.

"Throw at the same time. _At the same time_ -wait, where are you-?! _"_ Weiss slapped a hand to her forehead as her ragtag troop of slightly older kids abandoned their defensive position as well as any semblance of discipline as they ran cheering to meet the opposing forces. So much for organized warfare. At least Jack had stayed to defend the fortress.

Ruby had the biggest kids bowled over in a flash, making them easy targets for her troops to dogpile in the snow. The heiress turned to Yang, fuming, "Do something!"

But the brawler's eyes were elsewhere, staring over Weiss's head. The heiress was shouting something at her, no doubt asking her to save their reckless squadron from a swift defeat at the hands of her sister, but she paid no mind, squinting instead at two spots of black that had appeared just over the distant treeline. They were moving fast - directly towards Weiss.

Yang's eyes widened in recognition, her body springing into action. " _Get down!_ " She lunged at her agitated teammate, toppling them both to the snowy ground in a jumble of white and gold just as two pairs of smoke-black claws raked by overhead. Two snarling Liliac crashed into Team Freezerburn's stalwart snow fortress, reducing it to a pile of icy rubble in mere moments. With red eyes flashing and oversized ears twitching towards the joyous shouts nearby, the pair of Grimm thrashed back onto their feet and up into the air again, making a beeline for the rowdy band of children locked in battle at the center of the field.

Jack, the blonde-haired sub-par watchman, had just struggled up, laughing and dancing to get snow out of the back of his coat when one of the red-fanged monsters shot towards his face. Before he could even cry out, a flash of familiar crimson knocked him to the ground.

Ruby skidded in the snow, Crescent Rose unfurling in her hands as she sprang after the second Grimm. The creature's claws had already latched onto the brown coat of a little girl. Its clinging wings muffled the girl's screams and its beady eyes gleamed blood red.

The young team leader's focus narrowed to the speed, the angle she needed as she called on her semblance, the rush of it prickling up her spine, taking every ounce of concentration she possessed. The field around her became a blur as she cheated time, her weapon a lethal rush of steel. It parted the Liliac's fur and flesh and bone like butter.

Petals scattered in her wake as she skidded again, boots digging into ice. Her heart hammered. She didn't spare a second to think when the Liliac's body fell in two fast-disintegrating pieces. There was blood. The little girl was sobbing. Was she bitten? Was she dying?

Other kids were shrieking, crying out. Ruby's silver eyes darted over them, wild and quick. Where was the second Grimm?

Two clear shots rang out, followed by an ear-splitting shriek as the second Liliac fell from the sky, a gaping hole torn into the membrane of one of its wings. Across the field Blake stood with Gambol Shroud in pistol form, eyes wide and teeth showing in a grimace - the Grimm's flight patterns were too erratic - she had missed the body. She watched in horror as the twitching beast landed a little ways behind Ruby, right in the center of a clump of the children, sending them scattering every which way in a frenzied panic.

The Grimm's relatively small body all but disappeared in the fray, but Yang's eyes were trained on the spot where it fell, catching glimpses of writhing blackness between the colorful coats of the children. She shot to her feet, her mind racing through a host of options before finally flickering down to Weiss, who was still recovering from having just suffered the brunt of Yang's crushing weight.

"Weiss!" Yang reached down to help the heiress back to her feet, pointing with her other arm to the fallen Grimm - it had snagged the scarf of a small boy and yanked him to the ground, advancing with red-white fangs visible even from this distance. "There!"

Weiss scrubbed snow from her eyes and fumbled for her rapier, off balance as Yang dragged her up. She flung up her arm, and half across the field an ice blue glyph sprung to life between the lone Liliac and its prey. It's patterned teeth rebounded off the circle of blue with enough force to send it flailing backwards in the snow.

It didn't get a chance at another victim. With a resounding _crunch_ , Ruby brought her massive scythe down, burying the first quarter of its blade in the frozen ground straight through the Grimm's skull and upper torso.

The dark-haired teen pulled her weapon free as the creature dissolved into dark nothingness. Nothing moved among the trees on the hills above. The children who remained on the field looked to her in stunned silence. She gripped Crescent Rose and swallowed. "Yeah. Let's all go play inside for a while."

* * *

Play-in-the-snow time was officially at its end. Weiss, Blake, and Yang went about escorting the more shaken children to their homes - the heiress even personally saw Jack safely to his mother. Ruby on the other hand, rushed the brown-coated girl who suffered the worst of the attack to the clinic, faster than any ambulance.

The team had agreed to meet back up in front of town hall - both because it was an easy location to find in the center of town, and to speak with Gale. If the town leader didn't already know about the attack, she needed to be warned. Ruby, despite her speed, was the last to arrive, skidding to a halt before the rest of her team.

Yang picked a rose petal out of Ruby's hair, hoping her sister's ashen complexion was because of overusing her semblance. "So, how was the girl?"

"She was pretty scared, but we shared my cape while Curt fixed up the scratches around her ear, so I think she's okay. Cyan went to find her mom," Ruby fidgeted under her teammates attention, "I dunno. Guess the phones have been acting up or something."

Day three, and a kid had gotten hurt. It wasn't their fault, but it had still happened and Ruby had to fight off the sinking feeling that she'd failed the town and her teammates by not being prepared, or fast enough, or something. She shook her head, "The other kids were okay? How was Jack?"

"We got to his door and he offered to walk _me_ home," Weiss rolled her eyes, "I never should have made him second in command for that stupid game. His Goliath of a mother was horrified that he had even associated with me." The woman was six feet of towering muscle- small wonder Jack was big for his age.

"Anyway, we've already contacted Gale," The heiress crossed her arms and indicated the town hall's double doors with a tilt of her head, "Apparently we're going to have that 'talk' with the brain dead chief of mining operations."

"She's already gone to get him from the mines," Blake added, eyes downcast as she typed out shorthand notes for Yang to read on her scroll. She still felt partially responsible for the chaos of the day, having essentially dropped a live Grimm into a group of unsuspecting children. "For the record, she did not look happy when she heard about the daylight attack. It's a first - the Liliac have only ever come out at night before-"

"If you guys are talking about Gale, she's headed this way with that friendly miner guy," Yang cut in, pointing over Ruby's shoulder.

The two had just rounded the corner of a building a few blocks down, the diminutive town leader taking almost three steps apiece to match the lengthy stride of her bear of a companion. Neither of them looked happy, though Gale's expression softened somewhat by the time they reached the town hall. Still, she didn't spare a greeting for any of them, simply walking to the double doors and holding one open. "All of you. Inside, now."

Weiss went rigid, positively bristling at the direct order. Ruby took the stairs two at a time.

"Come on, guys," she motioned for her team, making sure to stand between Weiss and Gregor as the two scowled and sneered respectively. Ruby held up her hands, turning serious, "Guys."

"Why should I let these punks in my mines when they can't even keep a kid safe," the man snarled to Gale. His face was smudged with dirt or gunpowder and his no-longer-white sleeves were rolled to the elbows despite the snow. Apparently he wasn't in the mood to settle in before starting the negotiations, "If Beacon sent us rejects, I say we send 'em back," he ignored Ruby, reaching over her with ease to take a fistful of Weiss's coat, his free hand straying to the claymore at his back, "Especially this one."

"Get your hands off of me," The heiress gritted through her teeth. She gripped the hilt of her rapier, the weapon's Dust chamber shifting to red.

The heavy slide of steel and the click of a round being chambered cut them off as Ruby shoved back between them, the barrel of her partially-extended sniper scythe tucked up under Gregor's chin. Ruby's hands were rock steady, her finger over the trigger, "I really, really don't like pointing weapons at people when there are Grimm to point at instead. So let's just go inside, okay?"

The chief miner bared his teeth and all but threw Weiss down the stone stairs and turned to enter the doorway. The altercation had lasted only a handful of seconds. Ruby breathed a short sigh of relief and stowed Crescent Rose while her partner straightened, the very picture of cold fury.

Blake and Yang appeared at Weiss's sides, flanking her like sentries, the latter cracking her knuckles and casting a dangerous glare at the mining chief's back as he retreated past Gale and into the building.

Somehow, the group made it into one of the town hall's small meeting rooms without a second scuffle. A decent-sized rectangular oak table and plush chairs lent the room a much warmer atmosphere than the one being brought in by its tense new occupants. Team RWBY sat in order on one side of table, Gregor took up nearly half of the other side on his own, and Gale stood at the table's head, waiting until everyone was settled before she took a deep breath, and spoke.

"Firstly, before anything else is said," her eyes swept the team of huntresses, "I want to personally thank you four for _protecting_ our children," she underscored her emphasis with a sharp look at Gregor, "I don't even want to consider what could have happened if you hadn't been there." Here Gale leaned forward, placing her scarred hands on the cool tabletop as she leveled a hard gaze at her disgruntled chief of mining operations, "Secondly, and I'll be blunt - these attacks need to stop. These girls need access to the mines. All _four_ of them."

"Gale, you've been blunt from the get-go and I've been blunt right back," Gregor crossed his arms over his chest. "We've been holding our own in the mines in the day. Daylight comes, and none of them get past us."

"Except the two that almost _ate_ your town's entire under-twelve population," Weiss didn't so much as bat an eye when Gregor rose from his seat, features twisted in a snarl.

Blake resisted the urge to put her face in her hands - so much for keeping Weiss from talking, though, she couldn't fault her for being right. Her shorthand note to Yang read simply "sass."

"Gregor," Gale snapped the man's name like a whip, taking a second to compose herself before starting again. "Gregor. Don't let that winning personality get to you," she spared a brief, scathing look at Weiss, "but don't kid yourself. We were holding our own weeks ago. You and I both know the attacks have only been getting worse. We need help. I requested help. This is who we were sent. This is who we have to work with."

"And I'll work with 'em. Three of 'em," Gregor's chair gave a strained creak as he settled back into it. He gripped the arms of his chair as he turned back to Weiss. "You can work with Ed. You know Ed? Always looking for some help cleaning out the septic tanks round the edge of town."

"Look," Ruby broke in, throwing an arm across Weiss's front before she could rise to Gregor's insult, "We work as a team, and that's that. If you want us to help you find the source of these Grimm bats, you have to let us in."

"So the little girl wants to call the shots?" Gregor snorted but didn't make a move to threaten the formidable huntress-in-training, "So far you haven't done jack to stop these bats. They aren't just coming from the mine, either. Those two that got to the kids didn't get by us."

"And what exactly do you want these huntresses to do about the Grimm without going into the mines?" Gale interjected, a small vein beginning to pop out on her neck, "Do you seriously expect them to scour the entire mountainside for some kind of new opening to the caves? Something that may not even _be_ there? A needle in a haystack at best that could take days, _weeks_ to find? When all it would take is a matter of hours to guide them straight to the very opening these dustforsaken Grimm appeared in when your miners first broke through that cavern wall?"

The elderly woman's tone, which had been rising steadily throughout her rapid-fire questioning, dropped to a low growl, "If these girls are trained to fight best as a coherent unit, then forcing them to work apart would be _stupid,_ plain and simple," scarred hands balled into fists, resting on the edge of the table as Gale slowly drew herself to her full height, eye-to-eye with Gregor in his chair, "Are you really going to sit there and deny them access to the mines, their one solid lead, because one of them happens to be a Schnee?"

"You bet I am. Beacon sent us students. As fancy as their weapons might look, none of them's gonna be able to fix this," the huge man's jaw was set as stone, "There's been more and more of these things, and I'm not compromising my operation so a bunch of teenagers can just 'look around' for a while, maybe knock out a couple of bats. Not when one of 'em share's blood with a high-class gang that's been trying to take us apart for years," he met Gale's fury evenly. "If they want to do any looking, they do it outside. That second entrance _exists_. Make 'em scout it out. That way when they turn tail, the real huntresses won't have to waste their time like you're wasting mine."

Ruby felt like a kid sitting at the adult table by the time the miner was finished. She swallowed and watched Weiss grip the edge of her chair so hard she'd probably leave marks. "I know we're... maybe we're not..." Ruby fumbled for words, but, well, what could she say?

It was strange witnessing such blatant prejudice aimed at someone other than a fellow Faunus, but that didn't stop the dark disgust that pooled in Blake's gut at the sight of it. She was already caught in a crossfire of fire and ice - the heat of her partner's slowly burning rage to her left and Weiss's cold fury to her right, both sensations fueling her own building anger with this impossible man. Yet, it was catching the hurt in Ruby's eyes that finally pushed her over the edge.

Blake's voice was calm as she picked up where her team leader trailed off. "If anything you are the one who's turned tail. Running and hiding behind your pride rather than accepting the help you're being offered," she never once looked up from her scroll, dutifully typing her notes to Yang as she continued in her usual monotone, "Apparently, guarding your old grudge against my teammate's family name is more important to you than the ultimate safety of this town."

Gregor scowled at Gale, jerking his head toward Blake, "Why're they even in here? Trying to out vote me, or somehing? I've got a couple dozen guys who'd work a cliff shift in freezing rain for a chance to take a crack at a Schnee, if that's the game we're playing."

"Look, we get it, okay? You really don't want us in the mines," Ruby wished she sounded a little more team-leader-ish. She wasn't intimidated exactly- well, not because Gregor was big. Just the nice chairs and the polished oak and the paintings... and why couldn't they just get along anyway? She rubbed her arm, "If there's other stuff we can do, let's just do it," she glanced to her team for support, not quite certain that she'd get it, "At least it'd be better than arguing, right? I mean, bats are showing up in the day now. That's... kind of super bad."

"Super bad is one way to say it," Gale tore her gaze from the team of huntresses to glare at her chief of mining operations, matching his scowl with one of her own "Unacceptable is another." The elderly woman took a deep, steadying breath, releasing it in a bone-deep sigh. "I had intended for us all to have a civil discussion about this, but since that seems to be _impossible,_ " her eyes darted in quick succession from Blake, to Weiss, and finally to Gregor, "we're done here. This meeting is over."

Gale stood back, folding her arms behind her back as she addressed Ruby. "You girls do what you can searching the mountainside," she shot a glance at Gregor that quite literally sparked with fury, electricity trailing in an arc from her eye as her head turned, "I will search the mines for the source of these Grimm _myself_." More sparks trailed from her boots as she stalked across the room to the towering oak door that led back to the main hall, "Now if you'll excuse me, I have arrangements to make for someone to manage the city in my stead, because _someone_ refuses to let our requested help _do their job_." With one last withering glare at Gregor, Gale took her leave, leaving the door wide open behind her.

Ruby cringed as Gregor shoved his chair back, giving her team one last glower. She heard him mutter- the words 'crone' and 'waste of time' reached her ears- as he turned to the door, leaving the four girls alone in the meeting room.

"... that could have gone better," Ruby clasped her hands in her lap. Noticing Weiss's fists were balled so hard she was shaking, she added, "Um... but it could have gone worse?"

The heiress realized how hard she was tensing and forced herself to relax. Head up, shoulders back. She rose from her chair, hand going to Myrtenaster's hilt, "Let's just go."

"Let's," Blake stood as well, followed closely by Yang.

The brawler immediately went to her sister's side and placed a hand on her shoulder, giving it a solid squeeze. She glanced at each of her teammates in turn, acutely aware of the heavy atmosphere that had settled over the group. A confident smirk slid into place as Yang released Ruby's shoulder and crossed her arms. "So, when we find that opening in the mountainside and eradicate everything we find, I vote we make that guy literally stick his filthy foot in his filthy mouth."

The hint of a smile starting to pull at Blake's features spurred her on, "And uh, if we're going after more of those bat-things today-"

"Liliac," Blake sighed quietly to herself.

"-then, maybe we should invest in some earplugs or something first, so you all don't end up like me."

"Yeah... that's a good idea," Ruby mustered her enthusiasm as they left the town hall and crunched back out into the snow, "I mean, yeah! We'll get some ear protection and go find where the Liliac are coming from, _and_ clear it out, and, well, if they still don't let us in the mine, we'll just put that in the report for whoever comes out here next."

Weiss cast her a slantwise glance, "Speaking of reports, you never sent yesterday's, did you?"

Ruby gave a nervous laugh, pausing at the base of the town hall stairs, "I guess I got distracted?" she poked her index fingers together, "Um. How about Yang and Blake find earplugs while you and I... do that."

* * *

A/N: So, this was an exceptionally challenging chapter to write... because... I have never played in snow... I have never even held a snowball, or built a snowman. I know nothing of this magical fluffy cold white substance. What do you mean there is a type of frozen water that isn't ice-cubes. (I basically had to ask Fiercesomest everything~~)

Will team RWBY find another entrance? ? Tune in next time~

HUGS,  
Defenestrator

PS. Sorry this is late I have no excuse ahhhHHH


	11. The Calm Before the Storm

"CAN YOU HEAR ME, WEISS?"

"You dunce!" Weiss held her hands over her ear, "I'm only wearing _one_. And I'm standing right next to you!"

"Oh, right," Ruby pulled back, trudging through the deep snow that had built up in the sheltered path. Her red cloak fluttered behind her as she fiddled with the foam plug in her left ear, "Remember guys, one in, one out till we find the Liliac."

Sure, the bats would probably attack from the air, but they needed every sense on high alert out here in case there were other Grimm lurking in the trees on the lower slopes. They'd been walking for an hour in the direction Yang had estimated the two snowball-fight crashing bats had come from, but so far everything was pine needles and ice and broken rocky slopes with zero Grimm-infested caves.

Nevertheless, Ruby was back in high spirits. She paid little mind to the cold wind nipping at her nose and ears. "Alright, we'll explore for big caves, and if we don't find anything we can do a grid-search for smaller stuff. Sound good?"

Blake nodded, nudging Yang's arm to get her to look down at the notes she'd taken. The brawler already had both earplugs in - she knew very well the displeasure of getting hit in a previously injured area. Her mouth dipped into a frown at the word _grid-search_. "Soooo, Weiss, how do those glyphs of yours work, exactly? Can you maybe just, hop up in the air and get a birds eye view of stuff?"

The heiress turned to Yang, ready to be cross, but, well, Yang was deaf. Plus resisting the urge to tear that idiot miner apart piece by piece (verbally, of course) had taken an extraordinary amount of effort. She heaved a sigh, "Sure. Why not?"

She pointed her index and middle finger to the ground and brought her hand up in a sweeping motion. Her alabaster hair, her pristine coat and combat skirt, and the delicate white-on-white of her family crest on the snow gave credence to all of her oft-despised nicknames. Ice Queen. Snow Angel. Ruby watched her partner spring into the air, onto a second glyph already waiting to propel her higher into the pale light of the overcast sky. Definitely Snow Angel. She made a mental note to never call Weiss that to her face, but wow.

Ruby glanced downhill where the trees were a little thicker. Probably Weiss wouldn't be able to see much from the air over there. She started down the rock-strewn hillside, "I guess, uh, let's look around some while we wait?"

With another groan from Yang after she read Blake's note, and a quick message to Weiss's scroll to relay their intent, the trio set off once more. Before too long Blake and Yang fell behind, Ruby having called upon her semblance to scout ahead for larger openings, leaving the others to do a more detailed search.

Sharp amber eyes scanned the terrain for any sign of rocky outcroppings, sinkholes, or pretty much anything that looked suspiciously cavelike. Her ears, however were of little used with how much they ached. The man at the counter had given Ruby an odd look when they'd asked for five pairs of ear plugs, but at this point Blake would have preferred literally taping her Fanus ears to her head. The plugs simply were not made for feline ears of any sort, and with her ribbon constricting them as well...

"Here, let me see."

Blake started, unaware Yang had been watching her fidget with her ears. She instinctually ducked back from her partner's attempt to reach for her bow, causing the brawler to frown. "They're bothering you, right? The earplugs. I've got a better vantage point so, let me see? Maybe I can fix 'em."

The Faunus froze, uncertain how to respond. On one hand, she was fiercely protective of her Faunus ears - the soft velvety appendages had suffered being poked, prodded, and yanked far too many times for her to count. On the other hand, this was her _partner_ asking. She been through enough with Yang to know she could be trusted.

For a wild, fleeting moment, Blake considered giving in - Weiss wasn't around to see, or to _tease_. No one would have to know. A blush slowly crept up her neck as she worked up the courage to speak.

"Uh, Blake?"

Blake snapped to attention, "Actually, if you want-"

"Your scroll is blinking," the brawler pointed to the small device in Blake's hand. It was a message from Ruby. "...What were you saying?"

" _Nothing,_ " Blake squeaked, mortified and beyond glad her partner couldn't hear her. She shied away from Yang's lopsided smile, forgetting to write notes for the brawler on her scroll as she turned and stuttered, "Let's- let's go."

When they caught up to Ruby, she was squinting, framing a sizable boulder jutting from the forest floor with her thumbs and forefingers. When she noticed the others, she grinned, "Hey check it out- it looks kind of like a person, huh? See the nose? And the funny hair? Kind of like Professor Ooblek."

Before Blake could comment on the likeness, Weiss dropped through the branches, landing more heavily than usual on the snowy pine needles. She straightened, still panting after the strain of her semblance use, "I'm officially ruling out the possibility of us stumbling across any gaping rifts, or giant cavern entrances, unless they're _very_ hidden under these trees."

Ruby's shoulders slumped a little bit. Well, she shouldn't have expected it to be that easy anyway. "That narrows things down, at least."

"Not necessarily," Weiss huffed as she fixed the cuffs of her sleeves, "The Liliac are small enough- all it would take is a tiny gap for them to climb out of some underground cave. Assuming they're even coming from someplace nearby. I mean, who's to say the two from this morning didn't fly over from _that_ mountain," she jerked a thumb at a snow-capped peak visible through the branches, "Or that one over there?"

"Yeah so, neither of you look like you found any caves," Yang looked from Ruby, to Weiss, then finally to Blake, who shook her head in confirmation. "Aw, _man._ "

Blake patted Yang's slumping shoulder as the brawler resigned herself to more searching - her _least_ favorite part of search and destroy missions.

While the brawler's expression was dour, Blake's was pensive, her free hand resting on her chin in thought as her mind drifted back to her days outside the kingdoms. "Should we... shift gears? Searching for caves might take weeks - weeks we don't have. But _hunting..._ tracking the Liliac themselves..." she let the suggestion hang, seeking input from her teammates - at least, the ones that could hear. She knew Yang would be up for any alternative to searching anyway.

"If we could catch another one on its way to town, we might get a better idea of where they're coming from," Weiss crossed her arms, " _If_ something like this even happens again."

"Yeah, the attacking in daylight thing might have been a fluke." Ruby let her gaze drop. A fluke would be convenient. The others were silent. Grimm didn't really do flukes. Nevertheless, Ruby set her jaw, drawing Crescent Rose and gripping her staff, more for the grounded feeling the solid weight of her weapon gave her than for anything else, "Alright, guys, let's come up with a plan."

Weiss rolled her eyes, raising her hand, "Something better than having me sit under a box all night, please."

"Staying out in the forest _did_ get one of them to come to us though," Blake glanced at Yang, who was still watching the skies. She gestured to herself and her partner, "If we can tack one of them back to its origin, that could cut our search time completely. We could camp out here while you two keep watch at the tower?"

"Maybe..." Ruby frowned, trying to figure if they'd be able to get decent sleep, being so split up. Long shifts were killer when you had to be up and going all day. She noticed Weiss smirking, "Um, what do you think?"

"Oh, it seems like a decent enough idea," Weiss gave Yang and Blake a sidewise glance, "Especially for parties interested in a little 'alone time'."

"Alone…?" Blake straightened up to her full height once Weiss's insinuation clicked. Lips pursed, eyes blazing, she positively _glowered_ at the other girl, though the fierce expression was somewhat undermined by her face's attempt to match Ruby's cloak in color.

Yang blinked, glancing between the two. Smirking Weiss and mortified Blake - equally rare sights in their own right. To see them both at once? Legendary. "Uh," she shared a confused glance with her little sister, certain that she was missing something important.

"Let's get our overnight gear then." Even with three of her four ears plugged, Blake didn't miss the heiress's quiet snicker as she turned on her heel and all but fled, dragging a quizzical Yang along behind her.

With a basic plan in place for the rest of the day, the team headed back to the cabin to gather their essentials before setting out once more. Much to Weiss's dismay, they also took a brief detour to return the trio of kittens to their rightful owner. Or at least, they assumed that Jack, the hapless boy who'd brought them the kittens in the first place, was the owner - his mother certainly took in the breadbasket of mewling fluffballs quickly enough when they'd shown up at her door.

After parting ways with Ruby and Weiss at the base of the tower, the latter's smirk earning another bright red glower from Blake, Blake and Yang headed back into the forest, walking in relative silence save for the occasional rustling of wind through the trees. It was a comfortable silence - one that allowed Blake to think. Or in this case, _avoid_ thinking about Weiss, and her teasing, and that smirk, and the idea that staying out overnight in the woods with her partner would be in any way different from all the nights they'd spent mere feet away in their own bunks.

Honestly, what was Weiss trying to insinuate? _Alone time._ Blake huffed and crossed her arms, playing off the frustrated gesture as an attempt to shield herself from the cold. She had absolutely no ulterior intent behind suggesting their current plan of action. Not in the slightest. ...Right?

"So, are you and Weiss okay?"

"Huh?" mercifully interrupted from questioning her own motives, Blake whirled around, her surprised expression spurring Yang to continue.

"Well you've been scowling at her like crazy today - I totally thought you were going to _deck_ her earlier," the brawler smiled, amusement winning over worry at the prospect of Blake and Weiss duking it out.

Blake's blood turned to ice, a stark contrast to that _incessant_ flush crawling its way right back up her neck. She'd noticed. Of course she'd noticed. Yang had always been perceptive. What else had she noticed? Without missing a step, Blake typed out a brief message lightning quick, refusing to look up at her partner. _We're fine. It's nothing._

"Uh huh," Yang looked up from the scroll, one eyebrow quirked at her twitchy partner, "and Ruby hates cookies." The brawler's hands caught Blake's shoulders to bring them both to a stop, welcoming amethyst seeking out sharpened amber, "You know you can talk to me about whatever, right?"

Deep down, Blake knew her partner was only trying to help - but this was not helping. This was doing the very opposite of helping. The normally cool, collected Faunus felt her composure splinter into nothingness, her face radiating heat that nearly matched her partner's semblance. She was going to die on this mission, not from a fierce battle, or a Grimm attack, but from sheer _embarrassment_. In her haste to stop her partner's well-meaning questions, Blake's fingers practically flew over her scroll's keys.

 _I'll tell you later._

Only when Yang smiled and nodded did Blake fully realize what exactly she'd just agreed to discussing. _Dust._ Well, at least she hadn't really specified _when_ later would be...

"Let's set up over there."

Startled from her thoughts yet again - this was becoming a pattern with Yang - Blake took a moment to study her partner. The nonchalant brawler either hadn't noticed Blake's fluorescent blush, or she simply wasn't commenting on it. Blake decided against questioning her good fortune.

Amber eyes followed Yang's gesturing arm to a sizable pile of jagged boulders resting a few paces away, probably the remnants of a long forgotten rock slide, the tallest of which was relatively flat, reaching just above the tops of the trees.

With a quick nod from Blake, the pair scaled the rocks in short order, finding an unparalleled view of the surrounding mountains, and much to Blake's chagrin, howling wind that bit twice as deep when unbuffered by the forest below. Fortunately, the Faunus had come prepared this time, pulling an enormous fleece blanket from her small pack. Wincing slightly at the cold seeping through her splayed out bedroll, Blake took her place on the boulder, gazing out over the vast expanse of terrain that led out into the wilds, away from the town. She felt Yang settle behind her, the brawler keeping watch over the path that led back to town and beyond.

The two huntresses-in-training sat in companionable silence, each wrapped in their own thoughts as they scanned the skies. Yang was fortunate enough to have the sunset on her side, a beautiful sight, and she seriously considered asking Blake to abandon her post so they could watch the reddening sun dip behind one of the towering white-topped mountain peaks together. Just as she was about to make her move, Yang felt part of a blanket drape across her. It was none other than Blake's black fleece blanket, cute stylized barking puppies of all sizes and colors dotted here and there across the soft fabric - a gift from Ruby, the first of her many valiant attempts to sway Blake's favor towards canine-kind.

Yang grinned over her shoulder at her partner sitting quietly under the other half, amber eyes resolutely trained on the skies. "Thanks but, you know I don't get cold, right?" She felt Blake shift backwards, jumping slightly when the Faunus pressed her freezing cold back against the brawler's own. "Oh." Yang leaned back as well, welcoming the weight of her partner's presence with a gentle burst of heat. "I've got you."

One side of Yang's lips quirked upwards in a lopsided smiled at the light rumbling sensation that could only be Blake's purr resonating through her bones. Being unable to hear it made her feel it that much more keenly. Resigning herself to what was probably going to be a peaceful night, which honestly didn't sound that bad the more she thought about it, Yang turned her gaze to the distant flickering lights of town, wondering how her sister was faring with Weiss.

* * *

Ruby slid into her sleeping bag, casting one last look at her partner. Weiss hadn't felt like talking- really hadn't felt like it- and volunteered for first watch with no fuss, even though she'd taken last watch with Blake the night before. That was a long stretch to have to be alert for. They would have to rethink their watch schedule with Jack- or drop out of the town watch altogether- if this was going to work without one of them keeling over from exhaustion.

Weiss leaned on the bell tower's stone rail, gazing out over the sleeping town. She had a frustrated, calculating look Ruby recognized from the times when a Dust theory problem turned out harder than she had anticipated, or when a new combat technique proved exceptionally difficult to master. She watched the heiress take a breath and exhale slowly so her breath misted in the air.

"G'night, Weiss," Ruby whispered, and ducked under her covers to get some much-needed sleep.

* * *

"Aaaaaaaand sent," Ruby closed her scroll, staggering up the last few steps into the belfry and collapsing into a pile of burlap sacks of wool. "Three days of nothing."

"Not nothing- we've had two more mid-day attacks, _and_ a spike in Liliac numbers in the mines. Blake spotted that one yesterday afternoon," Weiss followed her up, rubbing her arms through her coat. "We're heading in the right direction."

Ruby groaned without moving, "Ozpin didn't even write back yesterday. These reports are so _boring_."

"If you skip them, Beacon will think we're all dead." Weiss threw up her arms, "They'll send out a rescue team and it will be _your_ fault they wasted their time." When Ruby didn't respond, she grumbled, "We'd have a lot more to write about if the people in this town let us do our jobs." Gregor had yet to budge on his stance concerning the mines. The heiress marched to the other side of the massive bell, shoving any crates that were near enough to shove and scowling, "Where's Jack? Honestly, if he's home sleeping on a perfectly good watch night-"

"Maybe he had to go look after the kittens, or something," Ruby propped herself up on her elbows, wrinkling her nose. Wool smelled pretty strong when you were right on top of it. Or near it at all. She pulled her scroll back out, "I'm texting Blake. Wanna say hi?"

"Why? We saw them ten minutes ago," Weiss huffed, fumbling to light the small Dust lantern that hung on the wall.

"Suit yourself," Ruby shrugged, tapping a short check-in to Blake and her sister.

* * *

Blake never knew time could drag so slowly. Her life outside the kingdoms and her training at Beacon had prepared her for the heat of battle - the onslaught of enemies, overcome through mind-bendingly fast-paced combat tactics. But sitting and waiting... keeping watch... _This_ was hard. Yang's company at least made it bearable, the brawler's heat a constant presence at her back.

A tiny blip from Blake's scroll caught her attention, and she pulled the small device out immediately, brows knitting together in confusion at the terse message.

 _Look._

There was no listed sender. The word simply sat in the center of the screen, demanding action. Baffled, Blake looked around, but there was nothing. She turned to glance behind her. A pile of smoldering ashes sat where Yang had once been. Blake shot to her feet, Gambol Shroud at the ready, her partner's name dying in her throat when she caught sight of her new surroundings. Gone was the peaceful mountain valley. All that remained was destruction. Chaos. Screams and cries, deadened by a pervasive cloud of smoke and soot, overrun by the cacophony of explosions raining down on all sides. Her eyes caught the silhouette of a lone figure walking towards her through the rubble.

 _Leave._

The command sounded as thought it had been whispered straight into her ear, but Blake refused. Even if she had wanted to run, she found herself rooted in place among the center of a pile of debris. Near the top of the figure, two pinpricks of bright, glimmering pink cut through the haze, boring straight into her.

 _Blake._

A new voice this time, different from the first, distorted and muddled, as though spoken through a broken scroll. Blake finally found her own voice. "Who are you?"

 _Blake._

The figure was nearly upon her - well within Gambol Shroud's firing range. Something kept her from shooting.

 _Blake - hey._

Amber eyes snapped open. Blake whirled around, eyes wild until Yang's hand appeared on her shoulder, the brawler's usual smile having slipped somewhat. "Well, good morning to you too, bright eyes. You all right?"

A dream. A _weird_ one. Blake let out a sigh, unable to keep the corner of her lips from quirking at that stupid phrase Yang was now so fond of. It was the brawler's choice response to the first words she'd heard when her hearing had first started to return - "good morning sunshine."

Blake had said it to her their first morning out in the wild, not really expecting her to hear, but Yang's blinding smile had been worth the temporary embarrassment. It still was. The town's medics Cyan and Curtis had practically thrown a party when they'd reported in to the clinic later that day, complete with more tea and specially blended (but unfortunately disgusting) herbal cakes meant to promote Yang's healing even further.

They were now technically on day three since the injury, and Blake could still catch the cloudy look that rolled behind Yang's eyes when she was having trouble understanding something being said to her, but she was starting to ask them to repeat things less and less often. Though, whether that was due to actual progress with healing or the stubborn brawler's own methods of coping, Blake wasn't sure.

"I'm fine," Blake waved a hand, "Nightmare." She looked around at the darkened, cloudy midnight sky. "It's... not morning at all."

Yang grinned. "Nope, but man did you nod off quick. And your scroll vibrated, so..."

Blake blinked down at her flashing scroll. So at least part of the dream had been real... It was a message from Ruby. Her eyes narrowed at the timestamp - Ruby had sent this nearly half an hour ago, but it was only just getting to them. They all knew their scrolls had been getting worse and worse reception as the days progressed, but this was just ridiculous. Weiss had mentioned it was probably due to interference from the snowstorm that was headed their way, but all Blake knew was that it was bitterly cold, and she would have frozen into an iceblock long ago without Yang's heat keeping her thawed.

Regardless, it made quick communications tough all throughout the town, only adding to the townspeople's growing sense of unease. It certainly didn't help that the Grimm kept sneaking through the cloud cover to attack. A farmer one day, a shepherd and his entire flock the next. There had been no fatalities, but the injuries had been gruesome enough to frighten any children Ruby had passed by when rushing the victims to the clinic.

Speaking of which, she should probably message Ruby back.

"Blake," Yang's tone was sharp, causing the Faunus in question to throw a questioning glance over her shoulder, "What is _that?_ "

It wasn't hard to see the distorted outline of a dark mass in the sky set against the low-hanging moon. With her superior night vision, Blake could make out what looked like the contours of a pair of wings - two pairs? From this distance she couldn't be sure, but the shape seemed wrong. The movement seemed wrong, fluttering wingbeats replaced with a strange writhing motion.

A series of quick calculations flew through the Faunus's head. Whatever that thing was, it had sunk below the clouds almost right overhead, flying low and at barely half the speed they'd seen Liliac clocking previously. Adrenaline flooded Blake's veins. This could be the one. This was a pace they could match on the ground. If they kept out of sight, they could track it...

Typing a swift message to Ruby and hoping against hope that she would get it sooner than later, Blake hit send and got to her feet, keeping her eyes trained on the creature passing by above them. "Let's go."

A single nod from Yang, and the pair disappeared into the forest below.

* * *

"They what?" Weiss rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand, dragging herself from her bedroll.

"A slow bat. They're following it," Ruby tossed her the message on her scroll. The wind caught at her cloak, making the edges stir as if the cloth itself was impatient. She checked and rechecked Crescent Rose's ammo and the extra cartridges at her belt.

"We can't leave," Weiss finished scanning the text and motioned to the bell dominating the floorspace, "With no Jack, there's no one to sound the bell _._ "

"Yeah, no, we're not going- we're just getting ready in case something bad happens," and a bunch of bats decide to come to town. This was all assuming nothing bad had happened already- the time stamp was old. Ruby winced. Blake would be careful, she knew, and Yang would kill anything that followed them, no problem. She took a deep breath, wishing she had night vision so she could have been on forest watch every night. "They make night vision goggles, right, Weiss?"

"What are you talking about?" The heiress glanced back from scouring the low-lit streets.

"We should get some."

Weiss rolled her eyes. "Terrific. We can all incorporate them into our combat gear."

"Mmhm," Ruby had refocused and was typing a quick note to Blake. _No Jack. Can't come and meet up. Send us coordinates if things get crazy. Be ninja quiet._

* * *

 **A/N: Let's get this train wreck rolling. Thanks for the reviews. See you next week.**

 **\- Fiercesomest**


	12. Descent

Everything was a blur of darkness and shadow. Yang cursed her human eyes, gripping Gambol Shroud's ribbon a little tighter - her tether to Blake. She'd already lost track of how long they had been following whatever they'd seen, darting through the forest with surprising ease, thanks to her partner's night vision.

Neither of them made a sound, and Yang would have smirked in pride over her silent stepping it if not for the adrenaline coursing through her. All the training Blake had given her on moving quietly had finally paid off.

The Faunus in question stopped suddenly at the edge of what looked like some kind of clearing. At least, that's what Yang assumed, as she peered through the inky blackness. A sickening _thud_ signaled the beast's landing.

A gnawing sense of dread gripped Yang with each strange shuffle and snap, and she moved to stand right behind Blake in a desperate attempt to make out what was happening. It looked like... maybe there were some bushes? A bit of rustling - had the beast split in two? Three?

Yang froze - one of those shapes looked distinctly... human. Fire began to rush through her veins. A hand on Blake's shoulder revealed her partner was rigid as stone. "Blake," she wondered for a moment just how much the Faunus could see of the three forms disappearing beneath the clump of bushes, "Blake, is that a _person?_ "

Blake's voice was strained, "It _was_."

* * *

"A _person?_ " Weiss read over Ruby's shoulder back in the bell tower, "Not from here. None of the secondary watches have signaled us."

The scythe-wielder swallowed thickly. The handful of night watchmen the town had tasked with street-level protection could have missed something, or could have been attacked themselves. Weiss's nails were biting into her arm, even through her cloak. She flexed her stiff fingers and typed back, _Still alive? Where are you?_

A victim was a major game-changer. If he or she needed help, they all needed to be there, and fast. That meant finding someone to take main watch duty. Ruby snapped her scroll shut and handed it to Weiss, "I'll be right back."

"I'll get a map of where we're going," Weiss reopened the scroll, pulling up a picture of the area they'd covered since they'd begun searching the mountainside. Her blue eyes darted up as Ruby hopped to the top of the belfry railing. "Be careful."

Ruby bent her knees, the tread of her combat boots gripping the stone, as she braced for the jump, "If you see _anything_ -"

"- I'll ring the giant bell," Weiss rolled her eyes, nodding towards the bronze instrument looming in the orange lamplight. "Just hurry up."

"Roger that," Ruby cracked a grin and vanished, leaving a scattering of rose petals in her wake.

* * *

The light of a single, flickering Dust lamp illuminated the porch of one of the residential cottages. A orange tom cat padded across the worn out rag rug, whiskers twitching as it investigated the smells in a tin by the door.

Its ears perked at a new sound, and out of nowhere a crimson missile hurtled out of the night. The tom streaked away, yowling as Ruby broke her fall on the house's front door, the force splintering the pine and ripping what was left off its hinges so the girl tumbled head over heels into the house's living room.

Light spilled in from the lamp outside. Ruby pushed herself up, groaning. She should have thought about how she was going to pull that landing off without Crescent Rose a little more. (Firing slow-down bullets in the middle of a town was probably frowned upon, after all.) Something crashed in another room and a light came on.

Next thing Ruby knew, an enormous woman with gray hair and a nightgown was advancing on her with the biggest kitchen knife she'd ever seen.

"Whoa! Same team! Same team!" Ruby scrambled up, knocking into a low shelf of books and scattered tools. She got her feet under herself and did a somersault backwards over the shelf to get some distance, holding her hands up for peace, "I'm with Team RWBY! We need Jack."

That stopped the woman, who narrowed her eyes without lowering her weapon. "You come _blasting_ into my house, _through_ my door, at two in the morning because you need _Jack?"_

"It's an emergency," Ruby squeaked. She cleared her throat, "I mean, it really is, and I know he's probably tired but we really, really need him to come keep watch at the bell tower while we're gone."

The woman, Jack's mother, seemed confused. "Isn't he already there?"

"Uh..." Ruby glanced down at a photo of the blonde haired boy she'd knocked off the shelf.

She got a sick feeling deep in her gut. Dread, like something black and slippery twisting in her stomach.

Jack smiled his crooked, uncertain smile from the shattered picture frame.

* * *

Yang snapped into action before Blake could stop her, crimson eyes trailing flame as she exploded from cover and disappeared after the three dark forms into the suspicious clump of brush. Teeth clenched, Blake managed to shoot a message to Ruby and note their coordinates before dashing after her partner. The cave entrance was hidden right beneath the bushes, no more than a slight crack in the earth, just big enough to slip into, the ground angling away like a rough earthen slide.

Blake dropped in without a second thought, reaching a hand up to keep track of the ceiling as she descended. It lifted away after a while, the narrow slide opening into a great chasm, where she rolled to a stop, crouched and ready. Her eyes landed on Yang standing stock still near the center of the cavern. The brawler was burning, not at full blaze yet, but just enough for both of them to see the broken human body lying before her.

Heart racing a mile a minute, Blake cringed at the heat starting to pouring from Yang - a degree-based measurement of the brawler's anger - all signs pointing to imminent meltdown. Despite the heat, a sudden thought made Blake's blood ran cold. She dared a glance upwards.

Hundreds, _thousands_ of red pinpricks obscured the ceiling in a silent, watchful mass.

They'd found the Liliac's den. Amber eyes darted around the cavern, a sinking sensation weighing the Faunus down when she spotted countless openings leading in every direction. There was no telling how many caverns just like this might be down here. Even if a perfectly silent retreat wasn't possible, with numbers like this they had to at least _try._ "Yang-"

"You. _MONSTERS._ "

The brawler all but exploded, illuminating the cavern in a burning flash of light and flame. Blake's cry of warning was lost in the chaos of endless Liliac descending upon them, though most were held at bay by the wall of fire circling around her partner. Wild shots from Ember Celica cut huge swaths of destruction in the flapping swarm, scattering the nearby Grimm, only for hundreds more to take their place moments later.

Plans officially thrown out the window, instinct took over. Blake shot forward directly into her partner's wall of flames, throwing her arms around Yang's middle, causing livid red eyes to glance down, surprised rage etched in deep lines on the brawler's face. She stopped firing just long enough for Blake to whisper a harsh command.

"Retreat. _Run._ Cover me."

Seconds felt like an eternity, but the instant Yang nodded in acknowledgement, Blake shot forward again, grabbing the person lying just outside her partner's ring of fire and making a mad dash for the opening they'd slid through, the shots surrounding her escape the only sign she had that Yang was following.

By some miracle, they made it to the entrance.

A roar of intent preceded Yang bursting through the slight crack in the ground like a living bulldozer, Blake following seconds behind. The pair sprinted across the clearing and crashed through the trees, any attempts at silence sacrificed for sheer speed. They ran until they were spent.

Chest heaving from exertion, Blake carefully laid their charge in the grass and collapsed next to Yang against a stately pine. Nothing had followed them. The forest was silent. Partly because neither of them could find the right words. Catching a light whiff of burning bark, Blake glanced over at her partner. Yang's eyes said everything the brawler wasn't able to voice. The Faunus found it hard to form words herself. She hazarded sending word to Ruby anyway.

 _Found the entrance._

 _Jack is dead._

Back in the thick of the pines, up the long, broken trail Yang and Blake had fled, the Liliac swarmed, pouring from the cavern like flying ants. Their sable wings filled the sky.

* * *

No connection.

"Stupid mountains," Weiss growled up at Ruby's scroll, the night breeze tugging at her coat as she stood balanced on the peak of the bell tower roof, holding the electronic device up as high as possible as if she could physically _catch_ messages sent from Blake and Yang.

Just as she was thinking about using her semblance to gain an even higher vantage point, she noticed the cloud. It came in low and black and seemed to hover, roiling, growing in size until it obscured the stars all along the eastern rim of the valley. Weiss lowered Ruby's scroll, frowning as the darkness began to pour down, sweeping over the silent pines like a noxious mist.

A distant chittering sound filled the air, and a strange noise like rushing air. Weiss stood, hand straying to Myrtenaster as the dark cloud came nearer.

She watched it, horror slowly dawning across her features as she saw flecks of red in the fast-moving darkness. Grimm red.

Weiss shoved the scroll in her pocket and leaped off the slant of the roof, calling up a glyph to get her back inside the belfry.

* * *

The warning bell boomed over the town- not once, but repeatedly, and it didn't show signs of stopping. Ruby sprang to the ruined doorway, sticking her head out into the night. The air was charged, as if with static, but she couldn't see anything beyond the rooftops.

"Sorry about your door, I've got to- hurk!" Ruby gagged as she was dragged back by her hood.

Jack's mother lifted her clean off the floor with one hand, bringing her to eye level. "Where's Jack?"

"I-I don't know for sure but he's probably in trouble," Ruby dangled from the collar of her cloak. She grabbed the wrist above her head with both hands, straining to breathe, "Can you put me down?"

* * *

Bleak and low, the warning bell's toll carried across the valley, riding the winds to Blake's ears. Black velvet perked at the sound, rousing the Faunus from the blank shock she'd slipped into. Eyes lifting to the sky, Blake listened, glad for something new to focus on.

"...It's not stopping," Blake flinched at the sound of her own voice breaking the silence. She looked down at Yang for a response, finding the brawler's eyes trained resolutely to the ground. Opting not to disturb her, Blake leaped up into the trees to scope out the situation. She almost wished she hadn't.

A solid black cloud, not of water and vapor, but of Grimm, sluggishly descended upon the town.

" _Yang,_ " Blake dropped from the treetops to kneel before her partner, hands gripping at the brawler's rigid shoulders, "The town..." her words petered out as hard amethyst finally met searching amber. Yang stood without a word, moving past Blake to gather Jack into her arms. The bell continued to toll, putting the Faunus on edge. She grabbed for her partner's arm. "Yang, there's no time-"

"I'm not leaving him." Red flickered in the brawler's eyes, causing Blake to step back. Yang's words came through clenched teeth, "His family should... they should have..." flashes of memories from a darker time, the few times she visited Summer's empty grave, kept Yang from finishing her sentence. A solemn look from Blake told her she didn't need to. Gentle fingers secured Gambol Shroud's ribbon around Yang's wrist.

Blake held the other end, already planning their path through the darkness. "Let's go," she said with as much confidence as she could muster. She gave the ribbon a light tug and started forward, Yang's heavy steps behind her a painful reminder of the brawler's extra burden.

* * *

Weiss searched the rooftops as the legion of Grimm descended upon the town like thick, black snow.

Where was Gale and her lightning?

The heiress's ears were ringing from her proximity to the giant bronze bell. The instrument's rope hung neglected, its end vanishing through the space in the floor, as Weiss summoned another glyph. The sigil's bright blue washed out the orange of the tiny Dust lamp set on the wall as it propelled the bell into another ponderous swing.

One more time. Just one more. Weiss set her jaw, gauging the distance of the Liliac from her post as she readied a last repel glyph. After that, well. Ruby hadn't come back, and she couldn't think of a way to effectively rendezvous without their scrolls. Yang and Blake... was there even a chance they'd survived? The whir of leather wings filled the air. Weiss set her last glyph in motion and whirled, flinging shots of ice-Dust at the first Grimm as it came shrieking into the tower.

* * *

The cries of the giant bats blended into an overwhelming thousand-voiced screech as they swept over the rooftops. Three hurtled in through the remains of the broken door to Jack's house. Their fangs gleamed white and red.

Jack's mother dropped Ruby in surprise as the small girl circled Crescent Rose open. A flash of crimson, and the trio of Liliac fell to the worn carpet, bisected from tip to tail.

"Do you have a basement?" Ruby shouted, fumbling earplugs from the pocket of her combat skirt. The woman nodded, staring wide-eyed at the flurry of winged bodies outside. Ruby got one of her earplugs in, just in time to fire a sniper round into another bat's face. It fell, half of its skull blown away. "I'll cover you. Let's go."

* * *

Quiet, open pastures speckled with sheep hunkered down for the night - an image that should have inspired peace left Blake feeling cold as she sprinted by. The Grimm had passed right over this area. They had only one mindless intent, one destination in their blood-red sights; the town proper, and all the people within. Smoke was already climbing high into the sky, blotting out what little light filtered down from the shattered moon.

The warning bell stopped ringing. Both huntresses listened intently for it to ring again, even as they crashed through brush and trees. All they could hear was the overwhelming keening of the legion of Liliac, mixed with what sounded like the frantic cries of the townspeople.

"Ruby..."

Blake's ears flattened at Yang's whisper, torquing her bow backwards. It was the first word the brawler had spoken since finding Jack. Amber eyes scanned the sky for the flash of sniper rounds, swift streaks of red, flickers of blue - _anything._

Anything, apparently, was lightning. A wild bolt of yellow shot through the sky, arcing _up_ from the ground and rippling through the darkened sky above before descending in countless branches, tearing through the very edge of the Liliac swarm. A second bolt followed, then a third.

Baffled, Blake traced the bolts down to the forest - the source was surprisingly close by, moving towards town at a steady pace. Blake and Yang were faster - they broke through a thicket of trees just as another bolt flashed to life right in front of them, coming straight from a very familiar figure.

Blake skidded to a stop, Yang halting right beside her. "...Gale?"

The elderly woman whipped around, glowing yellow eyes shining through the dark. "Girls? What are you..." She went quiet at the sight of Jack. Tendrils of electricity crawled across her body. "...Which of you can get me to town the fastest?"

Blake and Yang shared a glance.

"I can," the brawler stepped forward.

With a curt nod, Gale addressed Blake next, "Take the boy to the mines. The stronghold there hasn't fallen," her expression darkened, "yet."

Yang's grip on Jack subconsciously tightened even as Blake nodded and turned to accept her partner's burden. Anxious waves of heat rolled off of Yang as she reluctantly settled the boy over Blake's shoulder. Splitting up was a bad idea. Splitting up was always a bad idea. The brawler's repetitive thoughts halted when Blake gave her hand a reassuring squeeze, offering one of those beautiful half-smiles. Before Yang could get any coherent words out, her partner had already turned to speed towards the mines. At least, as quickly as she could under so much extra weight.

"I don't care how you carry me, just get us to town - _fast,_ " Gale waved Yang over, hardened eyes trained on the cloud of Liliac twisting, dipping, swarming through the sky, "These old legs aren't built for speed."

With one last glance at Blake's retreating form, Yang rushed to Gale's side, pushing all the worst possible scenarios to the back of her mind. She smashed her fists together, eyes shining crimson, fueled by a clear goal. There were Grimm to kill. "Yes _ma'am._ " In one fell swoop she hoisted Gale up behind her into a piggy-back ride, earning a surprised huff from the elderly woman. Both held their semblances in check as they took off towards town, trailing flame and lightning in their wake.

* * *

Twelve years.

It had been twelve years, more or less, since Summer had gone.

They'd never been able to find how she died. The Grimm she'd gone to fight shouldn't have stood a chance. She should have come home.

The streets of James Point were alive with Grimm, screeching, scrabbling at heavy shutters on buildings' small windows. The Liliac were fast and endless.

Ruby had always imagined it had been something big- a freak giant Grimm that had somehow... gotten a lucky shot or something. She sucked in air through her mouth, whirling Crescent Rose again, cleaving through another five- seven, fifteen Liliac while Jack's mother hauled open the cellar doors.

Maybe it had been more like this, though. Hundreds upon hundreds all throwing themselves on Summer's blade. Piling themselves on till the weapon got too heavy to lift. Ruby ignored calls from the woman to follow her into the cellar. She cut down swaths of Grimm, Crescent Rose's blade flashing. Her muzzle barked heavy rounds that sent the creatures reeling into chaos. Her shirt was soaked with sweat despite the cold, and blood from a half-dozen close calls. She was still okay, though. Still okay enough to wipe out a bunch of Grimm. Ruby waited only for the heavy _thump_ of the wooden cellar doors shutting to call up her semblance.

The warning bell had done its job- everyone who'd heard had latched their storm shutters and barred their doors and so far it had kept the Liliac out. There were so _many_ though, and they kept coming. Even through her ear protection, Ruby heard the screams, the breaking glass.

Lightning flashed across the sky.

Gale. Ruby jerked sideways as a bat collided with her face, its claws scoring their way down her neck and shoulder. A roll, a sweep of steel and the bat was dispatched. Ruby looked to the sky, but the blackness was all wings and the stars were red and coming closer every second.

* * *

A sharp report from Crescent Rose echoed over the din of shrieking Grimm. The sound was a blessing ringing clear in Yang's ears, rising over the dull crunch of Grimm bone against Ember Celica. Burning fragments of Liliac barely hit the ground before Yang's fist backhanded another snarling bat, sending it crashing into yet another.

That sound meant Ruby was still out there, still fighting, still alive. Crimson eyes trailing flame, the brawler's head turned to track the sound's origin, ears unhindered by any protective plugs. Yang leaped down from the rooftop she'd scaled, crushing a bat beneath her boots and stepping heavily into her next punch. Her entire arm ripped straight through an oncoming Liliac's wide open jaws with an explosive blast, the incendiary aftershock rippling out into the swarm, burning, singing, and scattering the enemy. She had already survived a sonic blast from these things once, and now that they were playing for keeps, she would never give them the chance to use it on her again. Confident the earplugs would better suite Gale, Yang had left them with the elderly town leader.

Another arc of lightning reached up from the roof of the town hall, high into the cloud of Grimm, disintegrating some, crippling others. A slick shower of black fell from the bolt's path. Gale was still trying to reach the clouds - trying to reach the storm above, or so she'd said. Yang wasn't exactly sure what the old town leader was planning, and honestly, she hadn't been keen on leaving the old town leader on her own, but once they'd hit the swarm of Liliac, it became clear just how this town had remained safe for so long.

Summer used to read to her and Ruby, long, winding, ancient tales of hunters and huntresses who had infused themselves directly with dust, often paying a terrible price for the sheer power it granted. This was the first time Yang had seen it in action. Lighting surrounded Gale, kept her impossibly safe, tendrils of electricity instinctively reaching out to destroy any Liliac that dared come within five feet of her.

Two more bolts of lightning stretched into the sky, a resounding _CRACK_ following each one.

It wasn't the sound she was looking for. Yang grit her teeth, straining to listen for another round of fire from Crescent Rose. The moments that dragged between each shot were torture - fear that each one was the last, that she would never hear another, fed the bloodlust driving her assault on the Liliac. Another round of explosives shot from Ember Celica, tearing a gaping hole in the cloud of Liliac swarming the rooftop Yang was gunning for.

Grimm had taken her mother. In a way, Grimm had taken her father as well. A bright vortex of flames encircled Yang as she stood tall on the roof of a half-crumbled home, staring down the oncoming wall of darkness. For all she knew, Grimm had taken her first mother as well.

She would _never_ let them take Ruby.

Splinters of shingle flew as she kicked off from the roof towards the direction of the last shot she'd heard, fists poised to meet the looming mass of Liliac head on.

* * *

 **A/N: I fell asleep while sitting up while trying to write this author's note. It is time to sleep.**

 **The rest of you should enjoy the chapter though!**

 **HUGS,**  
 **Defenestrator**


	13. Ashes, Ashes

Ruby panted for breath, one hand on Crescent Rose's shaft, another braced on the damp carpet. It was dark, and the kids she'd found were crying. She almost couldn't hear them over the screeching rush of the bats outside. Flickering slivers of Dust-lamp light from the Grimm-swarmed street outside caught in broken bits of broken mirror. It used to be a vanity, maybe. More Liliac thudded and flapped against the bedroom door, to Ruby's left. They must have chewed their way into the rest of the house.

 _Arms: check. Legs: check. Head: check._ Ruby hauled herself to her feet. The room spun, and she almost fell over- she almost fell over something. A quiet shape on the carpet. Bile rose in her throat, but she managed to bite it back and heft Crescent Rose again. The steel was comforting, solid in her grip. She sighted out the narrow gap between the window frame and the desk they'd upended to block it.

Behind her, in the corner, the pair of twins were fine. Their dark-haired bigger sister was too. Maybe a scrape or two, or four, but they were fine, huddled in the dark of the small room.

Ruby's aura patched the claw marks across her face. She rubbed her wrist across her cheek, fending off the itch that accompanied the hyper-fast healing process. She'd tried to extend her aura healing to the kids' mother, but it didn't work with strangers the way it worked with someone you knew and trained with. It was tricky enough with Weiss.

Weiss.

Ruby's stomach turned. There hadn't been time to get back to the bell tower. She wasn't sure if she could've made it anyway- she'd barely made it _here_. The bats outside were so thick they blotted out the view of the house across the street. Their shrieks and cries drowned out the kids in the corner.

She tried not to think. Her heart hammered in her chest and she was still breathing hard.

This was her fault. She should've gone to help Yang and Blake right away. Maybe they could've stopped whatever had happened. Whatever had brought the bats in these numbers. They scrabbled at the edges of the windows, fangs bared, hungry.

Ruby wiped her mouth on her sleeve.

"Guys, are you still there?" she listened close for sobbing and sniffling and heard it. "I'm going to have to shoot some stuff, so cover your ears, okay?"

She chambered a heavy round, aiming at the crimson eye forcing itself against the gap.

* * *

Another rooftop, another wave of Liliac rushing to an early, blazing death. Each Grimm fell to a single strike, shattering like glass under Yang's vicious straights, hooks, and uppercuts alike. A few lucky shots from stray Liliac had put a handful of shallow scratches on her, but they were nothing like a hit from an Ursa or Beowulf, nothing _substantial._ Unfortunately, substantial is exactly what Yang needed.

The brawler operated best on a system of give and take, always giving back everything she took, with interest. But this - this was just giving. Yang paused in her assault to let a lone Grimm plow into her side, using the impact to give her semblance a slight boost, anything to take the edge off of the fatigue beginning to set in. A growl escaped the brawler, well aware that at some point there would be nothing left to give. She unloaded another volley of explosive rounds into the circle of Liliac around her, gritting her teeth when the gaping holes she created filled right back in.

Endless. There was no other word to describe them. Yang had long since lost count of how many she'd killed by this point.

She had, however, kept perfect count of the seconds between the shots she'd heard from Crescent Rose. At least, up until it had passed 10 minutes. That was around when her worry began to shift to overwhelming dread, leading her to circle the same group of rooftops near where she'd last heard something. Just as it occurred to her to check _inside_ the houses underfoot, another shot rang out. The sound was so close it was deafening - completely impossible to miss, in fact, as a line of disintegrating Grimm dropped from the sky right before Yang's eyes. The brawler instantly followed the trajectory of destruction straight back to a house on her side. For a split-second, Yang caught sight of a shattered window, the gaping would-be entrance blocked by something solid, before it was once again engulfed by a fresh wave of Liliac.

 _Ruby._

Gale's distant lightning tore across the sky as Yang leapt down from her rooftop directly into the fray, landing right in front of the blocked window with an explosive blast of fiery aura. "Ruby," she shouted over the din of bats swarming to replace the large swath she'd just incinerated, trying to keep the edge of panic from her voice, "tell me you're in there!"

Ruby would recognize those flames anywhere. She hauled Crescent Rose back, springing to the edge of the heavy desk to yell through the gap, "Yang! Yang, I'm here!"

"Ruby," relief flooded the brawler's veins as she glanced behind her to catch a glimpse of quicksilver, taking her attention away from the fray a second too long. A Liliac slipped through the brawler's blind spot and collided with Yang's head, sending her staggering sideways. She spat blood with a snarl, grabbing a dark leathery wing in each hand and ripping the bat clinging to her face clean in half. Firing another incendiary shot to scatter the writhing mass of Grimm and buy her precious seconds of time, she pressed her back to the charred, splintered wood keeping her from her little sister. "Are you all right? Are you injured?"

"Yeah, I mean no, I mean, quick, get inside for a minute, there's kids here," Ruby braced one foot against the sill and strained to pull the desk back enough for her sister to slip through the gap.

" _Kids?_ " Yang started at the sound of wood scraping against wood, feeling the barrier behind her shift, "Ruby, what-" Yang snapped to attention as the wall of Grimm surged forward, driven into a frenzy by the dark scent of fear leaking through the widened opening. "Just _try it,_ " she roared at the Liliac trying to push past her, using her entire body as a burning blockade. The second she tumbled through the opening, she shoved the desk right back into place, snapping a Liliac's wing in half as it tried to shove its way inside. Yang gripped Ruby's arm, taking two seconds to breathe before taking stock of her surroundings. A shattered room, three children huddled in a corner, Ruby, looking roughed up but still in one piece... Amethyst met silver. "...Where's Weiss?"

Ruby's eyes darted to the gap and back, the cold air like a knife in her lungs. The desk held as Liliac scrabbled at its edges. She swallowed, trying to keep her voice steady and leader-y. "She was... she was at the tower. She rang the bell. What about Blake? What happened?"

Yang cringed, not daring to mention the complete lack of anything she'd seen at the bell tower from the rooftops. Not a single dart of white or flash of blue. Maybe she had just retreated to a lower level. "Blake is at the mines," the brawler replied, glancing at the terrified children in the room and offering them a warm smile that didn't quite reach her eyes, "she... she took Jack's body with her. Gale said there was a stronghold there." Yang pressed her back against the heavy oak desk, helping hold it against the relentless assault of Grimm.

"We - Blake and I saw something while we were on watch. We tailed it back to a huge cavern of these things and it was... Jack was..." the sight of the boy's mutilated form flashed through Yang's mind, eyes flashing crimson in tandem. She halted then, the relief of finding Ruby finally freeing her mind of its singular tunnel vision to latch onto a realization far, far worse. Horror-stricken, she slowly turned to peer out the small gap at the Liliac swarming outside, their impossible numbers briefly illuminated by two quick flashes of lightning. "...I did this."

"Yang..." Ruby watched Yang draw into herself. Blood dripped down her hand from a cut her semblance wasn't healing. She couldn't let her sister withdraw—not now. She'd figure out the non-healing cut later too. For now, she scrubbed her eyes and brushed her sister's knuckles with her own. "Yang, I need you, okay? We didn't know it'd be like this, but now we've gotta take care of these guys and... and..."

There was no way they'd make it to the tower to help Weiss. If only Ruby had kept her scroll, they could try contacting her. She tried to remember if there were any good defensive positions in the tower, but with the open belfry walls and floor...

"The bats don't like the light, right? I mean, I know we're not sure, but we can always hold this place till morning, or rest and make a run for it, alright? Hey, I'll watch the window if you check on these three real quick," Ruby motioned to the kids in the corner, but glanced at the dark bundle on the carpet near the door. "I... I kind of got here late."

Yang's shoulders visibly relaxed at her sister's words, but a deep breath hissed through her clenched teeth when she followed Ruby's eyes to the covered figure on the floor. She gave Ruby a quick, fierce hug before nodding and heading over to the three children huddled together in the corner.

"Hey there," she placed a warm hand on the oldest girl's shoulder. Don't you worry about a thing, my sister and I are going to keep you safe." Peals of thunder rattled the walls in time to bright flashes of light. Yang glanced over at Ruby, "And so is miss Gale."

The girl and her brothers shrank farther into the corner. One of the boys whimpered, but the sound was almost lost in the flurry of screeches and the roll of thunder.

Ruby kept her sights on the bats jamming their faces into the gap. The desk weighed a ton, though- she'd had to use the kick from Crescent Rose to get it in place, and it wasn't too keen to move now. When one Grimm stuck its claws through, raking its claws over the woodgrain surface, she fired, clearing the whole opening.

A couple seconds was all it took for a new batch to scramble, clawing and biting in their attempts to get through.

There was a scratching at the door, and then a harsh grating sound. The Liliac were still trying to come in through the rest of the house. Ruby motioned to Yang, calling over the noise, "Sorry, but there's a door- can you block it?"

Yang shot a glance at the door standing across from them, shuddering and shaking on its hinges. "Yeah, I got it," with a parting smile at the children, she stood and gave the room a quick once-over for anything suitable, eyes landing on a stately wardrobe. The harsh grating returned, dragging Yang's eyes right back to the door in time to see a single claw sliding its way through the center of the wood. They were trying to _break the door._

Just as the thought entered her head, a sickening _crack_ resounded through the room as the door splintered in half, exploding open in a shower of splinters and hissing Grimm, the first of which immediately met Ember Celica in an explosive denial of entry the second it crossed the threshold. Stripped of any time to form a better plan, the brawler braced herself between the empty door frame and flared her semblance to its limits, daring any Liliac to meet a fiery death if they attempted to pass.

For a split second, lightning illuminated the partially-collapsed house, the missing chunks of roof granting Yang an open view of the sky filled to the limit with Grimm. A particularly brazen one charged her, heedless of the flames. As her fist flew to catch the snarling Liliac it head-on, Yang missed the bolt of lightning reaching up through the sky, finally breaking through the cloud of Liliac to reach the cloud of storms above.

She didn't miss the blinding flash of light that followed, or the column of energy that rose from the rooftops, feeding jagged tendrils of light that streaked through the dark storm clouds above before dropping a rain of electricity that arced a thousand times over, jumping indiscriminately from bat to bat, incinerating anything that was close enough - including, Yang realized a second too late, herself. She watched, stunned, as the smallest arc of lightning crossed that final inch of distance between the Liliac right before her, and her fist.

Ruby, fast as she was, barely had time to dive and cover the kids, gathering the trio under her cloak as she brandished Crescent Rose against the blinding light.

For a moment, Yang's entire world was white-hot pain, the relentless current searing her from the inside-out in a way her flames never had. The next moment, it was gone, replaced by the familiar rush of her semblance kicking into high gear. The brawler grinned, feeling pure energy coursing through her - this was exactly what she'd needed. The flash of lightning faded, replaced by a new, steady light.

Pushing a strand of glowing blonde out of her face, Yang glanced over to Ruby and the children. "You guys OK?" She quickly returned her gaze to the open doorway, fists up and ready to wreck some Grimm, only to stop short and lower her fists. In place of the cloud of Grimm, a black snow of what looked like soot drifted down from the sky, blanketing the town.

Yang's hair burned as bight as lightning. Ruby squinted, shielding her eyes.

"Yang..." she breathed. She'd seen her sister take hits before-crazy hits that would break an average person in half. Nothing like a lightning strike, though.

Ruby checked the kids. Minor cuts. No bites. Blood smeared one of the boys' shirts and Ruby panicked for a second before she realized it was blood from her own hand. She shook droplets off and put the cut to her mouth for a second, too focused on looking after the others to wonder why her semblance wasn't taking care of the injury.

"We need to get them someplace safe and find Weiss," she fumbled the ear plug from her right ear, cloak swirling at her heels as she leapt to get a better view of the sky. The Grimm red was absent from the rain of black ash. She swallowed, trying to get rid of the copper taste of her own blood. She turned to Yang, mouth open to ask if she was alright, but she knew the answer- as long as her semblance burned, Yang was golden. When that energy started to die, however... Ruby swallowed again and shoved at the desk blocking their quickest exit.

Yang moved to Ruby's side and slid the desk away with one arm, letting the other slip around her sister's shoulder as they looked out the newly unblocked window at the half-demolished town. Well, actually, _mostly_ demolished. She sent a steady stream of healing aura into the younger girl, intent on putting her excess of energy to good use while she still had it. "Go find Weiss," she said after a moment of silence, glancing down to catch a glimpse of silver, "I'll take the kids to the stronghold at the mines."

The brawler turned her head to throw a bright smile back at the three children Ruby had saved, "Hey, you guys want to help me find the other townspeople on the way?" A thoughtful look crossed her face. "Then again, they'll probably find _us,_ " she laughed, pointing to her luminous hair, _"_ I'm tough to miss right now."

When Yang moved to step away from Ruby, the younger girl wrapped her both arms around her sister's waist in a surprise side-attack.

"Where do you think you're going? _Who's_ the team leader? Also who's the one who keeps telling me what happens when the good guys split up in horror movies?" she was still tingling from that aura healing. Ruby shoved Yang with her shoulder, mock-growling, "We're sticking together."

In a tumble of rose petals, Ruby was at the kids' sides, coaxing them up and out of the corner. "C'mon guys, we'll get you somewhere safe. Safer. If it's still there. Want to ride on Yang? She's really not as scary as she looks with the glowy hair and all."

Yang couldn't help but beam down at her little sister. She loved seeing this side of Ruby. Ozpin had made the right choice for team leader and she was _so proud_ \- but rather than embarrass Ruby with an explosion of affection, the brawler got down on one knee before the three children and opened her arms wide. "I come equipped with three seats - one on each arm and one on my back!"

The kids clung to Yang like monkeys, hiding their faces against her shoulder. One of the boys peeked every now and again, and the girl's face was grim.

Ruby ducked through the window, collapsing her scythe on the way so it would fit and circling it open again out in the desolate street.

Half the buildings she could see were pockmarked with holes. The Liliac had clawed their way through shingles, wood, anything they could tear through. Slash and teeth marks scored the mortar of the stone structures; everything else was in ruin. Grimm ash fell among rooftops still smoldering from the close encounter with the lightning.

How much time had passed since the start of this? An hour? No. Half an hour, tops. Ruby set her jaw and led Yang and the kids through an alley thick with splintered shutters and trash to Jack's house.

Jack. Ruby kept Crescent Rose at the ready as they navigated an open street. Jack was dead. A lot of people were probably dead. They scanned the rooftops for any sign of movement. The town was quiet, muffled in the sifting ash.

"Here," Ruby dropped to her knees, sweeping an armful of disintegrated Grimm away from the cellar doors, trying not to inhale any of the stuff. The surface of the thick wood was shredded, but the doors themselves had held. "Hey, anyone in there?"

After a moment, Ruby heard the heavy thud of a cross bar and the heavy door lifted a few inches, revealing Jack's mother. She stared out at the wreckage even as Ruby and Yang bundled the kids into her arms.

"We'll come back for you," Ruby tried to assure her. The woman's gaze, almost vacant, drifted to her. Tears were running down her face. Ruby gripped Crescent Rose and looked down at her hands and then away, in the direction of the bell tower, "We'll come back really soon."

* * *

Ice.

The top of the belfry was patched with heavy frost. It traced down the stone walls like spiderweb cracks to the base, ending in a ring of solid spikes of ice. The streetlamp out front stood bent in half by one of the far-reaching spikes, its light sputtering.

Ruby held her breath. Nothing moved. The empty silence was broken only by the soft shift of the wind through the vanishing flurries of Grimm ash on the cobbles.

"Weiss," Ruby called. She ran, skidding at the edge of the spikes blocking entrance to the tower's double doors. Dark shapes dotted these defenses- Grimm trapped in the Dust-born ice. Ruby clenched her fists and yelled louder, "Weiss!"

There was no answer.

Yang slid to a stop beside Ruby an instant later, glaring daggers up at the spindly structure of ice. The stillness in the air did not sit well with her. A quick glance at her little sister revealed that it didn't seem to sit well with Ruby either. They waited for a moment, Yang quietly watching the dimming reflection of her hair in the ice. The trip through town hadn't been that long, but Yang could already feel the rush from the earlier lightning strike beginning to wane. She clenched her teeth. Better make use of it now. After cursory search to find the one point where the ice was at its thinnest, a languid roll of each shoulder, and a quick smile for Ruby, Yang dropped into a low stance, flared every bit of energy she had into her flames, took careful aim, and _smashed_ her fist straight into the icy barrier.

It shattered, showering the sisters with splinters that glinted in the light of Yang's fire and rang on the cobbles like bits of broken glass. The darkness previously embedded in the ice flickered away on the breeze- even frozen Grimm didn't remain in a physical form long.

In a flash of crimson, Ruby was at the double doors. Another flash, and she was back at Yang's side, silver eyes full of worry, "Still okay? Tell me if you're not okay."

The older girl was bent forward with both hands resting on her knees, steam pouring from her mouth with each heaving breath. Pain danced at the edge of her senses. Her hair flickered. She was still fine though. She had to be - at least for now. Yang took a deep breath.

"Yeah, yes, I'm okay," she straightened up, shaking herself out with what she hoped was a reassuring smile. "You'll know if I'm not." The worry in those silver eyes staring up at her did not diminish. "Uh, anyway let's go. I'm right behind you."

Yang was right—they had to go. Ruby took the few front stairs in a leap and shoved the double doors hard with her shoulder. They didn't budge, and she came away with frost and splinters on her cloak. Not to be deterred, she set her jaw and whipped Crescent Rose in a vertical circle, right down the gap in the two doors, bisecting the heavy cross brace Weiss must have put in place.

Ruby burst into the tower and stopped dead.

The interior looked like a scene from a fairy tale- like a winter palace. Street light came through a single window whose ice had given way under the Liliac's onslaught. The snow underfoot was dusted with ash- whatever bats had been inside had gotten a taste of Gale's lightning.

Ruby stepped into the room, boots crunching in an inch of snow. The iron staircase had been transformed into a delicate frozen spiral. Yang followed through the door, the molten glow of her semblance glinting off the myriad pillars of ice that stretched toward the roof. The centers of these were dark, spotted with Grimm, and the ceiling hung low like a chandelier cast in black and white. Ruby stared, hardly daring to breathe. There had to be dozens- _hundreds_ \- of frozen Grimm up there.

No Weiss, though. Ruby looked down at a pattern of snowed-over scuffs in the powder and ash. A dark splatter at the base of one of the pillars. Was that blood? _Please don't let it be blood._

"Weiss?" Ruby hazarded, tightening her grip on Crescent Rose as she crept through the frozen space. All the piled-up crates and bags of wool and junk stored at the base of the tower were dusted in snow or encased in ice. She almost didn't notice the shoulder-high clump of spiked ice curled against the curve of the far wall. Half of the prickly spires were broken. Some were ragged, as if they'd been chewed on. It was streaked with Grimm ash. Ruby scrambled over a bundle of rope and wool, ice splintering under her boot soles. She climbed onto the lowest intact spike, and polished the snow and black off the surface of the ice, trying to see through. It was no good.

Her nose was running in the cold. She wiped it on her sleeve and called, "Yang, over here. Come quick."

Yang tore her gaze from the ceiling, kicking up a cloud of ash-streaked snow in her haste to reach Ruby's side, only to stop short at the sight beneath her sister's feet. She wasn't sure whether the cold creeping down her spine was from the dust-born ice and snow that surrounded them, or the glimpse she'd just caught of white and red shimmering beneath the slowly melting surface of the suspiciously person-sized clump of ice Ruby had climbed.

The sisters shared a look, silver filled with a silent plea. Yang nodded, taking another deep breath. A gentle tug on Ruby's red cloak pulled the younger girl down from her perch and back to a safe distance as Yang's gears spun a mile a minute. If that was Weiss in there - it _had to be_ Weiss in there - she would have to be careful... The brawler eyed the frozen structure for only a second before settling on a point of attack, wedging both hands between a junction of icy spikes where the tips had been snapped off.

Willing her energy reserves to hold out just a little longer, Yang flared her semblance once more, a blast of steam rippling through her wild mane of gold as she dug relentless burning fingertips deep into unyielding ice. It was slow, painstaking, delicate work, and the ice was deceptively thick, engulfing nearly half of Ember Celica's fully extended form as Yang pushed, reaching for the other side.

Just as the terrifying prospect occurred to her that this might also be a solid structure of ice, Yang felt her fingertips break through, finally finding enough purchase for her to get a firm grip on the ice. Stance solid, fingers wrapped around opposing sides of the opening she'd created, the brawler set her teeth and _pulled_ with all her might. A grim smile crossed her face the instant the icy barricade give way with a resounding _CRACK_.

Yang hauled away a huge, curved piece- practically half of the spiked, ellipsoid shell. Ruby jumped into the gap at once, "Weiss!"

The heiress was a small heap of light and shadow, curled in on herself at the back of the protective shell so all Ruby could see was her slender back and the spill of her hair over her shoulder. Myrtenaster lay beside her, propped against the wall, its hilt and lower blade streaked with a dark substance. Her coat lay in a discarded crumple in the half of the broken shell Yang had dragged away.

Ruby took her shoulder, voice timid, "Hey, Weiss, wake up, the Liliac are gone. C'mon, okay? We've got to find Blake and… and..."

Weiss didn't open her eyes. She was had what looked like one of her layers, a dark cloth balled up under the curve of her neck, her hand limp in a position that suggested she'd been pressing the cloth against her left shoulder. Ruby's first thought was that she'd been using it as a pillow while she waited out the Grimm. But Weiss didn't own any really dark clothing.

The icy floor inside the shell was black in shadow till Yang leaned to see, and then, with growing horror, Ruby saw it was really red. Weiss's clothes, the trailing end of her hair, everything that touched the ground was coated in dark, frozen red.

The heiress wasn't moving.

* * *

 **A/N: Shout out to our guest reviewer who somewhat called this.**

 **Stay tuned, folks,**

 **\- Fiercesomest**


	14. We All Fall Down

_The icy floor inside the shell was black in shadow till Yang leaned to see, and then, with growing horror, Ruby saw it was really red. Weiss's clothes, the trailing end of her hair, everything that touched the ground was coated in dark, frozen red._

 _The heiress wasn't moving._

A sharp intake of breath preceded another _CRACK_ that echoed through the thick silence as Yang tore away the other half of the icy dome and roughly tossed it aside, her voice nearly getting lost in the glass-like shatter that followed. "Weiss-" the heiress's name slipped from the brawler's clenched teeth as a shaky whisper, worry creeping into the edges of her fury.

She moved to kneel beside Ruby in the newly-opened space, joining her in hunching over Weiss, crimson-rimmed eyes scanning the crumpled heiress for any sign of life. "Don't you _dare,_ " she growled after a tense moment of stillness, reaching one hand to press her fingertips just underneath the edge of Weiss's sharp jawline, moving them just slightly this way and that, searching for something, _anything_. Her other hand rested on Ruby's knee- an attempt at offering some sense of reassurance to her little sister, but also a means to brace herself against the sudden unstoppable wave of fatigue that was rapidly flooding her limbs.

Finally, she found what she was looking for. A pulse. Faint and flickering, but _there._ And not a moment too soon.

"She's alive," Yang removed her fingertips from Weiss's neck, Ember Celica scuffing the frozen blood on the ground with a sharp _clank_ as her hand landed heavily beside the back of Weiss's head. The brawler turned to look back at Ruby, smiling eyes cooled to an apologetic amethyst.

"She's going to be fine," a deep shuddering breath seemed to pull the burning glow from Yang's hair, as well as the smile from her face. Part of her hoped Ruby wasn't able to see her grimace in the diminished light. "Sorry I can't..." words trailing off into the dark, Yang tilted away, her hand slipping from Ruby's knee as she collapsed, joining Weiss on the bell tower's bloodied floor.

"Yang? Yang, wait don't do this now I can't carry you!" Ruby fumbled for her sister in the dark. Her breath came quick, misting in the air as her fingers found the still-cooling metal of her sister's weapon. Ruby grasped at her limp hand and called for her sister again, but Yang didn't move. In the dark, Weiss lay still. The wind gave a low moan across the open door of the icy tower. Ruby's combat boots crunched in the ice and ash as she stood up. She had to get help. Had the infirmary survived the attack? Ruby took deep breaths, "Okay, Ruby, you've got this. No problem. Well, big problem but everything will be fine."

There had been a _lot_ of blood on the floor of the ice shell. It was dark now but the memory spurred her—she wasn't even sure if Weiss had stopped bleeding.

She checked to make sure Yang hadn't fallen on anything jagged and felt for Weiss's coat, which contained both her and the heiress's scrolls.

 _Blake, message me as soon as you get this. I need you at the bell tower._

Ruby crossed her fingers and hit send.

Her teammates looked worse in the pale light of the scroll. Much worse. Ruby barely glanced up before she felt the tears coming and she shut the light off. She could try aura healing, but she didn't have a lot to work with herself and adding to the count of unconscious huntresses-in-training wasn't going to help anyone.

She navigated the frozen room by the scant light of the Dust lamp out in the street, unloading her gear and everything that remotely weighed her down- even Crescent Rose, who she planted in the ice outside the door at an easy-to-grab angle. She needed speed, and she didn't have any high-impact rounds left anyway so the recoil of her weapon wouldn't be any help. The night sky was black with clouds and still devoid of any bat sorts of sounds.

She took a deep breath, bouncing on the balls of her feet a couple times to loosen up. Thirty seconds. They'd be totally fine for thirty seconds.

A last preparatory bounce, and she dove forward into a run faster than the eye could see, rose petals scattering among the ashes on the cobble walk in her wake.

* * *

Ruby hurtled against the door of the infirmary hard enough to bounce off and into the stacks of firewood piled on the front porch. She was up in a second, fumbling with the knob. It turned in her hand and she crashed into the tiny waiting area. It seemed undisturbed. There was a light in the kitchen.

"Pleasepleasepleaseplease- agh!" Ruby's whispered prayer turned to a yelp as she collided with none other than Curtis. The man shrieked and flung melted candle wax on her and Ruby flailed her arms. Cyan appeared in the doorway brandishing a tea kettle. She stopped in her tracks when she saw it was Ruby.

"Oh thank goodness."

"Help- we need- Yang and Weiss. At the bell tower," Ruby explained in broken, gasping pieces. "Can I bring them here?"

The Cyan and Curtis exchanged haunted glances.

They'd just come through the worst Grimm attack in decades. Ruby tried to understand that as she pressed, desperate, "They're hurt. _Please_."

Cyan snapped out of it first, taking Ruby's hand in both of hers, "Of course. Of course you can. And anyone else you find who- who we can still help."

"Thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou," Ruby gripped her hands. Then she raced back to the front door and vanished in a blink of crimson.

* * *

A dark shadow darted through the streets of James Point, tearing past ruined buildings, collapsed walls and ceilings, stopping for a moment at a crossroads for amber eyes to sweep the ash-blanketed streets. Blake scowled. She hadn't seen a single Grimm in the city... she also hadn't seen a single survivor. Hoping against hope that the people were all still in hiding, she took off again, gunning for the bell tower - her only lead. Were Weiss and Ruby even still there? Where were Yang and Gale?

Unease nipped at Blake's heels, and she poured on as much speed as she could muster. She had never been quite as fast as Ruby, but she could be quick when she wanted to be - and right now, she _desperately_ wanted to be.

She'd seen the lightning. They all had. Countless pairs of tired eyes had frozen, transfixed, to watch the skies rend themselves apart in a violent eruption of light, ripping through the procession of Liliac a good ways into the forest from which they were coming. She'd left before she could see what happened to the rest of the Grimm, sprinting towards town amidst cries of "Don't be a fool!" and "It's not safe!"

Her black boots nearly slipped in the Grimm-black ash coating the cobblestones as she skidded to a halt before the bell tower. It took a moment to comprehend the sight before her. The walls were covered in sharp spires of ice. Weiss. A section of the frozen structure had been shattered, crystalline shards of ice littered the ground in a pattern that suggested explosive brute force. Yang. Her heart dropped at the sight of Crescent Rose stabbed into the ice - a lonely sentry, almost never seen without its wielder.

"Ruby?" Blake stepped into the bell tower, hoping for a warm welcome. Instead, her Faunus eyes cut through the darkness to see exactly what she'd feared. Weiss and Yang in a bloody, unmoving heap on the floor, and Ruby nowhere in sight.

The next instant, a ragged cry tore the heavy silence and a flash of crimson shot past Blake so close it touched the ribbon over her ears. Ruby hurtled into one of the ice pillars. It shattered, showering chunks of ice everywhere. Crescent Rose clanged hard against the ice and stone beneath the snow.

"Blake," Ruby scrambled to get her hands back on her weapon, which she'd snagged on her way in the door. She struggled partway up, panting through her open mouth. Rose petals littered the broken ice. Her knees were shaking as she white-knuckled her scythe's staff, "Are you okay? I didn't- your hair's so dark it's all I saw and I thought-"

"Ruby," a second Blake appeared from the shadows right behind the shaking girl, sheathing Gambol Shroud as the shadow clone that had nearly been bisected by Crescent Rose dissolved. "I'm okay," wild amber eyes and gentle hands searched the young team leader's face, head, neck and arms - everywhere - for any signs of serious injury.

"You're okay," Blake breathed at last, the soft words doubling as an exclamation of relief, as well as an offering of reassurance. The Faunus pulled back as quickly as she had appeared, hastily swiping a tear from her eye as she forced herself to look past Ruby to their fallen partners. "Weiss... Yang..." her breath hitched, betraying the terror lying beneath her practiced calm exterior, "Are they..."

"They-" Ruby choked, her words coming out thick and broken, "They're pretty bad. Yang got hit by lightning and Weiss- just, she's... I don't know if she's still bleeding, and...and we can take them to the clinic. Where we took Yang before, just Yang weighs a ton and maybe," she took a breath to steady herself in the flickering half light in the icy tower. "Can you lift her, do you think?"

Blake wordlessly stalked over to her partner, the adrenaline pouring through her veins at the word _lightning_ somehow resulting in a strange wash of calm she never knew herself capable of. She spared a moment to look down at Yang, then Weiss, immediately wishing she hadn't. It was worse up close. It was always worse up close.

With a great deal of maneuvering, a decent amount of strain, and a bit of help from Ruby at the end, Blake managed to get herself underneath the unwieldy brawler. Black and red streaked curls of blonde fell over the Faunus's shoulders, swaying in time with Blake's attempts to shift Yang to a point on her back where she could better distribute the bigger girl's sheer weight.

Feeling about as balanced as she was going to get, Blake took a tentative step forward, setting her jaw when her knees tried to buckle. If - _when_ Yang woke up, she was going to ask her about a bit of extra leg strength training.

"Okay," she growled to herself, willing her muscles to comply with unreasonable demands. She hoped she sounded more confident than her wobbly steps appeared, "I can lift her."

Weiss was light- alarmingly so. Her head rested against Ruby's shoulder as the younger girl hefted her off the ground. Something trickled sluggishly down Ruby's arm where a Grimm had cut the fabric of her sleeve and she grimaced, worried that she was making the injury to Weiss's shoulder worse.

"I'm gonna run," Ruby said to Blake, still catching her breath. Her breath hung in the frigid night air. She struggled to get a good grip on her partner's limp form, "I'll be right back to help with Yang."

A flurry of rose petals left Blake alone with her partner in the cold silence of the bell tower. Taking care not to slip on the ice, Blake putting one shaky foot in front of the other and made her way out into the night. A gust of wind dug its claws into the Faunus's exposed skin and she winced, missing the heat of Yang's aura. She stole a glance at the blonde head draped over her shoulder.

The usual warmth that spilled forth from the brawler had been replaced with... nothing. The heavy brawler on her back radiated no heat, no aura, and it frightened Blake into moving that much faster. Fortunately, it wasn't long before she saw a welcome streak of crimson in the distance. Ruby really was fast.

The red blur was accompanied by the unmistakable sound of steel slicing through Grimm bone. Bits of black dropped from the air, dark against the icy, ashy cobbles.

Ruby forewent one of her earplugs, tracking the flutter of wings in the dark.

There weren't many yet _._ That was good, but more would come. They always came after an attack like this, where civilians were hurt and terrified. She saw fearful eyes at the window casements as folks refastened their shutters with wire or boards or whatever they had.

Crescent Rose's blade flashed through another of the small, dark bodies just as Ruby caught sight of Blake and Yang.

Her arms burned, her lungs burned. She couldn't feel her ears or nose, but she gave Blake a thumbs-up to say I'm-fine-I'll-cover-you and leapt after the next bat.

Blake nodded to her young team leader, thankful to have the crimson personification of wind itself at her back, tearing through any Grimm that so much as dared to near them. The winter winds were far crueler, bearing down on the heat-deprived Faunus as she trudged down the street, cursing the cobblestone path with each step in her heeled boots.

The solid brawler draped over Blake's back and shoulder minimized the cold to some small extent, but for the first time in her life, Blake was lending warmth to Yang, sending a steady stream of healing aura into her partner as she walked. Whether it was even helping or not, she had no idea, but she had to try. She _refused_ to lose another partner.

Rose petals danced through the air around Blake thicker than rain, a new cluster of crimson making its way into the fray with each screeching Liliac silenced overhead. Ruby was on a war path - one that ultimately saw Blake safely to the clinic with Yang. Even if she hadn't already known the way, an ominous trail of blood marked the path, leading directly to that small painted sign, chipped and shredded almost beyond recognition by Grimm. It was one of the most welcoming sights Blake had ever seen.

Careful to avoid using her partner's head as an unwitting battering ram, Blake instead used her unoccupied shoulder to shove at the door, pleasantly surprised when it swung open with relative ease and slammed against the backstop.

"Please-" Blake's words died on her lips at the sight of a scattered mess of dark red before her on the floor. A sharp metallic smell assaulted her senses. It was everywhere. What looked like three sets of frantic, bloody footprints had streaked the small pools of crimson in nearly every direction, one set leading back out the door she'd just come in, and the other two leading back into the kitchen-turned-examining-room.

An unpleasant rush of adrenaline filled Blake's exhausted limbs with strength anew, helping her soldier those last few steps along the bloody trail to push open the kitchen door.

The light in the kitchen was bright and warm, several pots boiled softly on the stove top overseen by Cyan. She had her sleeves rolled to the elbows and a dishtowel in her hands when Blake entered.

"Curtis," she said, hanging the towel over the edge of the sink and hurrying to help get Yang to one of the cots near the wall.

"Busy," Curtis remained bent over Weiss at the table.

The heiress lay on the sheet-draped kitchen table, surrounded by crumpled, bloodstained rags and earthenware pots of herbs and salves. Her eyes were closed. Her shirt had been cut away from her shoulder, but the wound itself was hidden under the folded cloth Curtis kept pressed over it. He held a small cup in his free hand, swirling the liquid almost absently, "Is her partner back yet?"

"I don't know," Blake carefully brushed a strand of gold from Yang's face, only leaving her side once she was certain the brawler was properly situated. With quick, nervous steps, the Faunus crossed the room to get a better look at Weiss. She reached out a tentative hand to place it over the heiress's. It was ice cold. Blake wasn't sure what else she'd expected, but a sickening pit of dread roiled in her stomach all the same. "There are more Grimm out there," she said in place of a solid answer, surprised at the steadiness of her own voice.

Cyan didn't glance up from checking Yang over for injuries. Curtis remained quiet as well. The shutters were barred and the walls were stone.

The front door banged open and shut and Ruby practically threw herself into the kitchen, knocking into the doorjamb as she tried to fold Crescent Rose down.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry- just got caught up," she panted, and pulled up short, visibly taking stock for a second before wiping her hand on her skirt and coughing into her elbow.

Her thoughts were racing too fast for her to get a good hold on, so she turned and shut the door firmly, gripping the knob hard for a second. The metal was cold. The wooden door frame was worn satin-smooth. She took a deep breath.

People were in trouble, and she was a huntress. In training, anyway. She needed to stay level.

As the ones primarily in charge of taking care of the town, her teammates came first. Ruby crossed to the table.

"Blake?" she glanced at Yang at the edge of the room and tried not to look down at her own partner yet. She swallowed thickly, sincere appreciation and relief in her tone, "Glad you made it."

Blake nodded, returning Ruby's sincerity in equal measure with a small, tired smile - a smile that briefly faded when she glanced back at Yang as well. Even from this distance she could see bruises starting to form, marring every exposed surface of the brawler's skin. She tore her eyes from the sight and looked instead to her team leader, frowning at the fatigue showing through her eyes.

Fueled by a desire to offer any support she could manage in Yang and Weiss's stead, Blake reached out to touch Ruby's arm, stopping short when she realized she'd gotten blood on her fingers. Pulling back slightly, she curled her hand into a fist, hoping for a moment the younger girl hadn't seen. The moment quickly passed when she remembered Ruby had seen far worse. Uncurling her hand once more, she finally reached across the table to grip Ruby's arm. "What do you need me to do?"

Ruby bit her lip, sorting things out. "You know where Jack lives?" she grimaced, realizing her mistake, "Lived. I left some kids there and told his mom I'd come back for her. Could you maybe check in with them? We need to do a sweep to find anyone who's still..." her silver eyes strayed to her unconscious partner.

Curtis poured a few drops of liquid from the cup in his hand past Weiss's lips. Ruby couldn't tell if she was even breathing. Her snowy aura flickered faintly. The dark-haired man lifted the cloth to inspect the heiress's shoulder and rubbed his eyes under his glasses, grumbling, "I can't tell if she's stopped bleeding because her aura's working or because there's just not much left to bleed."

Blake's mouth set in a thin line at the sight of the proud heiress reduced to such a state, but part of her knew there was nothing more she could do here. Ruby was right. As the sole bearer of night vision and the least injured on their team, she was the obvious choice to search for survivors. Jack's house. The boy with the kittens. She remembered the place... that would be her starting point.

With a deep breath, Blake released Ruby's arm, and gave her a swift nod. "On it." She turned and crossed back to the other side of the room, stopping beside the cot with Yang resting on it. Amber eyes briefly swept over the brawler's bruised and battered form, narrowing in some emotion Blake couldn't quite put a name to.

Careful to avoid getting in Cyan's way, Blake took one of Yang's hands in her own, and gave it a squeeze. "I'll be back. You better be waiting for me." Her peace spoken, Blake let go and turned to leave, giving one last nod to Ruby before heading out the door to begin the sweep.

Ruby watched her slip out through the kitchen door. Blake was smart, and quick, and _super_ experienced dealing with Grimm. She wouldn't let the Liliac get the better of her.

"Should I try sharing auras?" Ruby gripped the edge of her seat, wanting to take her partner's hand or sleeve or just touch her and help her but she didn't want to mess up whatever Curtis was doing.

"Sharing?" the dark-haired man slipped his glasses back on. His brow furrowed.

"I mean, uh, I might be kind of worn out, but Weiss- she's my partner, and I just..." Ruby faltered, but Curtis just looked to Cyan.

"By all means," the young woman gathered up an extra blanket, doubling it and spreading it over the one already covering the heiress from the waist down. She noticed blood dripping off the scythe-wielder's hand as she took her partner's. "Did you get bitten too?"

Ruby let her examine the dripping cut on the back of her knuckles, "Is that bad?"

"We're thinking there's something in the bites that keeps your aura from doing it's job," Curtis scooped a bit of greenish salve from one of the fist-sized earthenware pots with his fingertips, "Do what you're going to do. I'll clean that up for you."

Weiss's hand was cold as ice. Ruby clutched it hard, leaning both elbows on the table. It wouldn't be like before, with the Grimm rats. This wasn't poison that burned you up and tried to eat your soul out from the inside. It wasn't. She closed her eyes to concentrate, her heart pounding in her chest.

Yang had always made aura sharing look easy. Her aura was warm, sunshine-y gold that seemed to pour off of her as thick and easy as honey. Ruby had to focus hers, imagine gathering it all up in her hands and holding it, letting it warm its way into Weiss. The fencer's aura was a sharp thing, delicate, fragile, and Ruby's was clumsy and bright and she felt wary that Weiss might jerk awake and yell at her for not knowing how to do this right.

Cyan stood, her hands on the back of Curtis's chair. They both watched as the crimson glow of the younger girl's aura extended to the gravely injured heiress.

After a few moments, Curtis lifted the cloth from Weiss's shoulder. The mangled bite showed, still angry and red, but it no longer seeped blood. He dripped another few drops from one of the cups into the girl's mouth, and this time she cringed. Her aura burned white.

Ruby's hands locked around Weiss's. All at once, she couldn't breathe. It felt like she was getting turned inside-out, but she couldn't do anything about it. The heiress's open wound glowed a hot-pink mix of the two girls' auras.

As abruptly as it started, the glow faded and Ruby was released. She jerked back, legs tangling with her chair as she tried to stand.

Curtis fumbled with cups and bandages while Cyan moved to catch Ruby, "Are you alright?"

"Yeeee-ow... that kinda hurt," she rubbed her head. Her vision swam and her words felt mushy and strange in her mouth, "What happened?"

"Here, Curt."

"Iron and Dust, I'm sorry. I've got her."

Strong arms helped Ruby sit down on the tile floor. She grimaced and spat as Cyan rubbed her face with a cloth. There was a coppery taste in her mouth, "Am I bleeding?"

"Your nose. Yes," Cyan continued to wipe her down while Curtis continued to apologize.

"I don't feel so great," Ruby slurred. She pulled her gaze up to the rust-stained sheet spilling over the edge of the table, "Is Weiss...?"

There was an odd ringing in her ears and she couldn't quite understand what Cyan said. Ruby felt hot and sick all of a sudden and shut her eyes against the blackness creeping up on her. _Deep breaths. Okay, deep breaths_.

For a handful of seconds, she was lost in a dark place, no sight, no sound but that awful, high-pitched ringing.

Then the ringing and the sick feeling abated. When it had all drained away, she opened her eyes and saw the cracked and patched plaster ceiling. Her head rested on a stack of folded dishtowels.

Cyan helped her sit up, "Do you feel okay? Can you eat something?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm okay," Ruby accepted the proffered bread and soft cheese and took a first cautious mouthful, following it with a more enthusiastic second. She hadn't realized how hungry she was. By the time Ruby finished she felt a lot better and sat with both hands braced on the ankles of her combat boots, her red cloak pooled on the floor behind her. "I guess I overdid it."

"It was my fault," Curtis sat sideways in his chair at the table. He leaned his elbows on his knees. "I thought it might help. I didn't expect it to pull so much from you."

Panic caught in Ruby's chest then and she lurched up, grabbing the edge of the table and using it to help her stand.

Weiss lay as she had before, the blankets pulled up to her collar. Her white hair was still an unwashed mess, streaked dark red. Her eyes were closed. The covers rose and fell softly with her breathing.

She was breathing, though. The skin on her injured shoulder was whole- pink, like a new scar. Ruby collapsed into one of the other chairs at the table, sagging against the back of it with relief.

Curtis moved to examine Yang, who was still out cold on the cot by the wall. Ruby picked herself up and grasped for Crescent Rose on her clip at her back. Blake hadn't come back yet. The windows were shuttered, and the Dust lighting flickered. Ruby started to stand but her knees shook and she dropped back into her seat, elbows braced on the table while the world spun.

Blake would have to be okay on her own for a little while.

* * *

 **A/N: Hang in there Ruby! Do your best out there, Blake! Yang and Weiss, uh... good luck?**

 **Also, by this time next week, Fiercesomest will be here in person for the summer and I'm _too excited_**

 **Until next time!**

 **HUGS,**  
 **Defenestrator**


	15. Blood and Snow

Blake's plan of visiting Jack's house first lasted all of one block. She had barely made it to the corner when a crashing sound and a shrill scream pierced the night air, dragging the Faunus's attention away from her intended destination towards the relatively small house she had just passed. A cloud of dust partially illuminated by the nearby streetlamp rose from the now-missing corner of the home. The wall and part of the ceiling had fallen in.

Sharp amber eyes cut through the darkness looming outside of the streetlamp's meager circle of light to see a Liliac diving straight towards the source of the original scream - an old man pinned beneath his own home's rafters. Gambol Shroud was already in pistol form by the time Blake took aim at the creature, firing a single shot that tore straight through its wing, throwing the Grimm off course and sending it careening into the ground just short of its target.

The snarling beast landed hard, but it wouldn't give up. It writhed and dragged itself towards the cringing man, stopping only when Blake slammed into it from the side, sweeping Gambol Shroud's sharpened sheath straight into its neck and sending the beheaded beast flying into the darkness in two distinct pieces.

"Are you all right?" Blake lowered her voice in an attempt to keep from further startling the wide-eyed man. She breathed an internal sigh of relief when he came to his senses enough to scowl and spit blood from what looked to be a busted lip and a missing tooth. His leg was pinned by the roof's collapsed support beam, and he growled in pain when he struggled to his elbows to get a better look at who had just spoken to him.

The elderly man blinked through the inky blackness of the evening, squinting to see anything beyond the dark amber-eyed figure standing amidst the rubble at the very edge of the streetlamp's circle of light. "Are you..." he caught sight of the girl's weapon, "Oh thank _Dust_ a huntress. Finally. I figured you lot had abandon-" his voice caught in his throat when a Liliac dropped from the sky out of nowhere to literally rend the girl in two, dissipating her stoic form in a burst of darkness.

Just as the Liliac turned its blood red eyes on the frozen old man, Blake descended from the darkness herself in her own improved version of the Grimm's earlier attack. One clean stab to the back of its neck killed the creature mid-snarl. The old man stared in awe. "How did you-"

"It's not safe here," Blake cut the man off before he could waste time with questions, taking quick stock of the beam pinning his leg. It was without a doubt too heavy for her to move on her own, but... she could cut it to a size light enough for her to manage. She moved to the beam and paused, poised to strike with her blade. "Don't move."

The old man had lived long enough to understand an order when he heard one and complied immediately, flinching at the sound of steel meeting wood, and heaving in shock when the severed beam only rolled to crush his leg further. "What in Remnant's name are you _doing,_ " he gasped through the pain even as Blake rolled it the rest of the way, freeing him.

"It was too heavy to lift," Blake's simple explanation didn't seem to appease the old man, who glowered at her even as she came to help him stand.

"Oh god my leg," he moaned, grimacing both for the pain and for the mere sight of the appendage hanging at an awkward, useless angle as Blake began to help him move forward, "You _broke_ the blasted thing - because a piece of wood was too _heavy?_ Dust, why couldn't it have been that blonde one to find me, she had muscles to rival an ox, that girl."

Blake's fierce scowl silenced the man's tirade. With one arm supporting the old man and guarding him with Gambol Shroud's sheath and her free hand gripping her sword, Blake and her charge hobbled their way back towards the clinic, making slow but steady progress, each step punctuated by a grunt of pain from the man. It wasn't long before they turned the nearby corner and the clinic came into view just a few yards away.

Even beneath the bow, Blake's Faunus ears caught the telltale sound of wings fluttering above and to their left, allowing her to duck and pull the old man down with her just as a Liliac dove past them, bone-white talons brushing right through the hair on the top of Blake's head. The close call drove her to ignore all else but the goal before them and she hissed, " _Move._ "

The sharp, one-word command spurred the elderly man to grit his teeth and shuffle faster to match Blake's increased pace, making it to the light of the clinic's door in half the time it would have taken previously. Bake paused to carefully scan the skies, catching sight of their attacker already heading off in pursuit of a new target. A grim expression overtook her features when the realization sank in that that the Liliac would actually make her sweep of the town incredibly easy, drawn as they were to the intense fear that was doubtlessly being given off by anyone left alive.

Pushing that thought aside for the time being, Blake ushered the winded elderly man through the door of the clinic and quickly shut it behind them, breathing a short sigh of relief that halted when she realized he was staring at her strangely. She stared right back, tracking his eyes, noting how they were locked onto something just slightly above her head.

Instantly Blake's hand flew to her bow - her _ears -_ the bow was gone. Her revealed Faunus ears flattened almost as if they were trying to hide themselves, betraying the shock she attempted to hide with her passive expression.

The man's eyes had narrowed. "You're..."

"They can help you in the kitchen. Follow the blood," in a rushed flurry of movement, Blake carefully deposited the man in the nearest chair and flung herself out the clinic's front door, escaping into the night.

* * *

Anything else that happened that night was a blur to Ruby. She wanted to help- she really did—but when she stood up her legs shook and the room pitched and spun. Cyan and Curtis shifted Weiss to one of the small cots near Yang and buried her in blankets while Ruby crashed on the floor at her bedside, curling up on her partner's relatively unbloodied outer coat with Crescent Rose in case there was any more trouble.

The door open and closed, opened and closed, and Ruby sort of heard other voices talking and crying softly- other survivors?- but she only snuggled a little closer to her compact scythe, the metal warming to the touch of her skin as she sank into a deep, exhausted sleep.

* * *

Morning came, but it was dark. The barred shutters rattled in the wind. The only light from outside was gray and bleak with falling snow.

Ruby woke by degrees, shivering on the floor between Weiss and Yang's cots. She pushed herself up, disoriented at first. The room was crowded with the sleeping injured. Some dozed against the walls, others huddled on the floor as Ruby had, sharing blankets against the cold that collected on the floor even in such a packed space.

There were bloodstains on the wall, tracked across the floor, everywhere. A low lamp burned on the kitchen table. Cyan had her brown hair tied back in an austere bun to keep it out of the way as she and Curtis cleaned and stitched wounds, or set bones, or gave broken townsfolk cups of weak tea.

Ruby scrubbed her eyes, sticky with sleep and worry, and got up on her knees to check on Weiss.

The fencer was still breathing. Even with all the blankets, her skin remained cool to the touch. She didn't open her eyes. Ruby took her hand from her partner's forehead and rubbed both of hers together, blowing them for warmth as she got to her feet and stumbled to Yang's bedside.

Her sister looked rough. Really rough. Bruises everywhere, and were those burn marks? Could Yang _get_ burned? Ruby got a lump in her throat and had to sit back down on Weiss's coat for a second and blink away the prickly feeling she got when she was about to cry. They were both alive, at least. And so was she, and Blake.

Her heart skipped a beat. Actually, where was Blake? Had she made it back? Was she still working out in snow? Ruby wiped her eyes on her sleeve and tried to locate her teammate in the gloom.

At that very moment the kitchen door swung open, and as if summoned by Ruby's thoughts, Blake stepped through the threshold. The Faunus cut a frightening image, painted head to toe in wild streaks of blood and dirt. Dark bags underlined hardened amber eyes, light cuts and scrapes littered her clothing and skin. And yet, despite the lines of fatigue etched into her expression, Blake stood strong. She carried a shivering young girl in her arms and an even younger boy rode her shoulders, clearly not yet old enough to grasp the gravity of the situation as he played with Blake's cat ears, happily murmuring "Kitty~" each time the velvety black appendages twitched away from his fumbling touch.

Blake's put upon expression warmed considerably when she caught sight of Ruby awake and well, and she sent a tired smile her team leader's way before refocusing her attention to the other side of the room. "Cyan," voice deepened with exhaustion, she called as quietly as she could to keep from waking those who were still trying to rest, glancing down at the girl in her arms. "Hypothermia."

"Hm," Cyan hummed through her concentration as she stitched, and Curtis rose to fetch another cup of tea from the stove for the girl, weary and grumbling.

There was a dwindling pile of blankets in the corner. Ruby climbed her way under Yang's cot to reach one.

"Here," she picked her way through the others on the floor, to the table, where a man with an uneven gash in his leg sweated it out under Cyan's needle. Ruby spoke, voice hushed, leaning on a chair for support. "Blake, can you tell me what's going on?"

Blake carefully stepped over a mother and child curled up on their sides and skirted around the man sprawled out beside them, finding a bit of free space to set the girl down before taking the blanket being held out by her team leader with a quick look of gratitude. She slid the young boy from her shoulders to sit him beside the shivering girl she assumed was his older sister, wincing visibly when he briefly refused to release one of her Faunus ears without a bit of gentle coaxing. Once the children were situated, safely bundled up in the surprisingly soft fleece blanket, Blake stood and turned her weary gaze to Ruby, blinking a few times to focus.

It took a second to fully register that she'd been asked a question, but even then she didn't really know where to start her answer. After a moment where she simply stared, Blake gave up on sorting her thoughts in any particular logical order and simply started with what she felt would most quickly put Ruby at ease. "The Liliac have mostly departed with the daylight," which had made it harder to find survivors as quickly, but that didn't seem like something she should mention at this point.

"I haven't made the most... coordinated sweep of the town," haphazard would have been a good descriptor, but she wanted to inspire at least _some_ confidence in her team leader, "but I feel like I've covered a lot of ground, and found quite a few survivors."

She also didn't feel up to mentioning the less than favorable initial reactions she'd been given by a large percentage of the very people she'd been trying to rescue - distrust, shock... fear was the worst. When the injured tried to run from her, like she was just as terrifying as one of the Grimm... She was starting to think the people of this town had never seen a Faunus before.

With a quiet sigh, Blake pushed the thoughts away. Her mind was wandering towards pessimism in its exhausted state. Maybe she really was the first Faunus this town had seen. Most of them had relaxed once they realized she was one of Beacon's huntresses and was there to help - not drag them into the darkness and feed them to the Grimm.

"The miners arrived sometime around dawn," she started once more, trying to keep from spacing out further. "They've been taking the less injured to help fortify the mines... I think." Blake closed her eyes, ears flattening as she crossed her arms. "They didn't actually say much to me." She had crossed paths with the men a few times by now, usually catching them as they were helping people out of their fortified basements. Each time she approached to lend a hand, they turned and stalked away towards the mines without so much as a word.

Blake opened her eyes again to find herself staring at the floor. When had her head drooped? She gave herself a quick shake to wake back up and glanced over at Weiss and Yang's corner. Her face fell. They still hadn't come around. After fiercely beating down the part of her that wondered if they ever would, Blake swept her gaze over to Ruby and did her best to smile. The younger girl looked far brighter with some sleep under her belt. It was a heartening sight. "Glad to see you're holding up. How are... they?" Blake couldn't keep her eyes from drifting back to their teammates.

Ruby's shoulders dropped upon hearing Blake's report and seeing her teammate so worn out. She crossed her arms on top of the back of her chair, hugging her arms close and stealing a glance back at her sister and Weiss. "They haven't woken up yet. Yang doesn't look so great, and Weiss is really cold, but she's not bleeding anymore. I didn't try getting them up or anything."

"That's probably for the best," Cyan set her needle aside, wiping her hands on a cloth before applying a bandage to her patient's leg. Curtis placed a cup on the corner of the table near Blake on his way with another cup for the young girl. Any surprise the pair of small-town physicians had experienced at finding out Blake was a Faunus had long since given way to acceptance and steady work. The same could not be said of all of the injured. Some who were still awake cast dark glances at her, wary. Suspicious. Cyan looked up at Blake, "Any sign of Gale?"

Blake's ears, which had perked at the tea set before her, instantly flattened at the mention of the town's leader. Former leader. "She..." had been reduced to a scorched, charred remnant of her former self, but the Faunus scrunched her eyes shut, willing away the image of the shellshocked miner carrying the elderly woman's sill-smoldering body towards the mines. "She didn't make it."

Ruby hadn't realized how quiet the room had gotten when Cyan had asked about the town's guardian until after Blake's pronouncement. The man on the table propped himself on his elbow, swearing softly under his breath. Several people broke down in quiet tears.

Curtis returned to the table, refusing to look at anyone. Cyan was suddenly very busy cleaning blood off her hands and arms, "... she's been standing between us and the Grimm for a long time now."

Blake nodded, reaching for the steaming cup of tea that had been set out for her. She wanted to say something... Maybe something respectful or uplifting. But in the end, all she could muster was a quiet, "I'm sorry."

Ruby swallowed, trying to clear the thick feeling in her mouth. If the hope of the injured townsfolk huddled in the kitchen was a light, it was flickering badly. She broke away from the group at the table to peer out a narrow gap in the shutters at the wind-driven snow outside. It was only a couple of days before Chuck was supposed to come back. Would he even be able to? She pulled out her scroll. Its battery was running low, and it still didn't have a signal. She slipped back to her place at the table.

"Is there a plan for this kind of thing? Like, an emergency back-up?" Ruby kept her voice low in case there wasn't.

Cyan sat down, resting her hands in her lap while Curtis helped the recently-stitched man out of the kitchen, maybe to rest on the couch in the small front room or something. "We have stores of food and water, and hand radios to call out for assistance. The mines are probably the easiest to fortify. Barring attacks of enormous Grimm- Goliaths or well... anything the size of a house- our homes are... were supposed to be able to hold up. We're well equipped for beowulf packs, or even ursai, just..." she paused to take a shaky breath, "Now that it's daylight, they'll organize parties to find any more injured or missing. I expect, well, if there are more of those things..."

Ruby couldn't fathom there being more Liliac. There had been hundreds. Thousands. But they'd kept coming. She glanced at Blake, who she figured had seen their cave, or nest, or whatever. Was another attack like last night's possible? Or had Gale's lightning wiped out most of the bats?

Blake frowned at the unspoken question as she nursed her tea, hating her unending role as the bearer of bad news. "If the branching paths we saw in their den was any indication... we may have only seen a fraction of their total number."

"... but we don't really know, right? I mean..." Ruby trailed off. They knew. They were Grimm. There were always more than you thought. They always got in where you thought they wouldn't. The only way to fight them was to be ready all the time. She and Blake and Weiss and Yang were huntresses-in-training, meant to step into the gap and defend the defenseless. They had to be ready.

"We'll watch for them," Ruby pushed off the chair, straightening her cloak, "Blake, you should rest for a while. Do you need anything from the cabin? I'm going to pick up more ammo."

"I could use more ammunition as well," Blake glanced back at Gambol Shroud - she had run out of rounds towards the end of the night, and though her blades had worked just as well, the close range attacks had led to some close calls. Fatigue hadn't been helping either. Ruby's offer to get rest was sorely tempting, but the tea was waking her up a bit and... Blake's gaze drifted back to Weiss, then settled on her partner. They were both so still.

She couldn't stay here. She needed a distraction. "Are you sure you don't want company?" Blake tried to keep the desperation from her voice as she scrambled to think of some logic she could use to back up her offer, "I haven't been as far as the cabin yet. I don't know what it's like out there."

Ruby's stoic leader act slipped at once and she whispered, "I mean, actually if you want to and you're not too tired and," to Cyan and Curtis, "we'll send someone right back here to keep a lookout in case there's any sign of any-"

"Ruby," Cyan's tone was fatigued, but fond, "We'll be fine."

Ruby took a deep breath, "Okay. Can we... tell us if you want us to bring you anything."

"Blankets," the other woman said. There were only a few heavy flannel sheets left in the stack by the door, "If it's no trouble."

* * *

"B-blake, I'm r-really glad you came," Ruby kept her head down against the wind and snow, but her hood blew back and the cold got down her collar and cut through even her thick cloak.

The townsfolk they crossed paths with were bundled in their thick, bright colored coats. They dug through the ruins of houses too riddled with holes to stand, looking for neighbors or family. They cast looks at the huntresses but didn't question them. Some of the looks were darker than others.

Ruby pulled her crimson garment closer around herself, squinting through the swirls of white, "Think we're almost there?"

Blake almost didn't hear her, with her Faunus ears flattened flush against her skull in a feeble attempt to shield them from the biting wind. She dearly wished for her bow, if only for the slight bit of insulation it would have provided.

Her eyes, however, were wide open, and even through the unforgiving swirls of white, she could recognize some of the landmarks that were still in one piece. "Yes, I think so." It took everything she had to get the words out clearly through her chattering teeth.

The blanket Curtis had thrown at her before they left was certainly better than nothing, but as she tightened it around her shoulders, all she could think was how it paled in comparison to the warmth of her partner she was accustomed to. She wanted that warmth back more than anything.

A sharp gust of wind nearly pushed her into Ruby, but she held fast, glaring at the path ahead. "...I think I see it."

Ruby squinted through the stinging snow. The dark outline of their cabin stood out in front of them, not fifty yards off.

"C'mon, let's run," she said, putting on a burst of speed to get down the last bit of road and up the porch steps.

She burst through the front door.

The dim interior of the cabin was just as they'd left it. Weiss's luggage was next to the door. There was a spill of pillows next to the couch, and a couple of hot-chocolate crusted mugs by the fireplace. Everything was quiet and cold.

Ruby held the door open a little for Blake, bracing it against the wind that wanted to fling it against the backstop. "Hurry up, it's freezing!"

Blake did not need to be told twice - she shot forward, spawning shadow clones in her wake as she slipped inside and helped Ruby push the door shut. Only once the cabin was closed to the howling winds did she let her ears unfold. She bit back a wince at their stiffness and tentatively brought a hand up to try rubbing a bit of feeling back into the icy black velvet.

"If this weather keeps up, we'll probably need to change into warmer clothes." Even as she spoke, she glanced down at her current outfit, streaked with grime and blood. "...Actually, I'm going to change right now." The second the words left her mouth she disappeared up the stairs, followed by the sound of the loft's bathroom door shutting.

Mere minutes later she emerged in her black pants, long-sleeve blouse, and black winter coat, left unbuttoned in case it proved too cumbersome and needed to be shed during battle. Grabbing the beanie hanging on her bedpost - the one she had woken up in after her drunken stupor - Blake crossed to the edge of the loft to peer down into the cabin's lower floor. "Ruby?"

The younger girl sat cross legged on the rag rug in front of the fire, fitting Crescent Rose with a fresh cartridge from her backpack, which appeared to contain nothing but carefully packed ammunition, "Did you say something? Wow, that looks way warmer."

"It is," Blake glanced between Ruby and the beanie in her hand, suddenly overrun with memories of all the times Yang made her promise to take care of the younger girl in her stead. The requests had been joking at times, dead-serious at others, but each time Blake had agreed. She hadn't expected to be taken up on that promise so soon. She also hadn't expected to be without Weiss's help in keeping it.

Tearing her eyes from the beanie and the pessimistic thoughts it was inducing, Blake tossed it down to Ruby with a sad smile. "Here, keep your head warm at least." She then followed Ruby's lead and left the loft's edge to gather ammunition for herself and her partner, who would need it _when_ she woke up.

Ruby caught and set the red hat on the side of the couch. She'd put it on when they were ready to go. For now, she popped into the kitchen to grab some supplies- a loaf of bread, some cans of chicken soup shoved way back in the cupboard. Realizing she hadn't eaten at all that morning, and probably neither had Blake, Ruby dug around and found a jar of peanut butter and some spoons and filled a couple of glasses with milk.

She dashed up the stairs, appearing in the loft in a flurry of rose petals, peanut butter and bread in hand.

"Time to refuel," she announced, setting the food on the end of Yang's bed and disappearing back down the stairs. She reappeared with the milk and handed Blake a glass, her solemn silver gaze brooking no arguments.

The Faunus paused in the middle of reloading Gambol Shroud, staring at the offered drink with a barely concealed smile. Had this come from anyone but Ruby, she might have thought it was a crack at her more feline features. Without further hesitation, she accepted the milk and downed half of it in one shot before setting it on the floor to finish with her weapon, relaxing a bit with the familiar _click_ of the fresh cartridge of rounds locking into place.

With Gambol shroud secured on her back, and her bag stuffed with blankets and further ammunition packed and ready to go, Blake forgot about her drink and got to her feet. "I'm ready to go when you are."

Her stomach refuted this statement with a growl that was closer to a roar. Blake's ears flattened slightly, belying the embarrassment she hid with a thoughtful expression as she caught Ruby's stern expression and eyed the food she had set out. "But... refueling first sounds sensible."

It wasn't exactly a picnic, but it got the job done. Ruby wolfed down sliced bread spread with thick layers of peanut butter and washed it down with her mug of milk, and Blake ate hers, and then they finished packing up and headed back into the snow.

If anything, the storm had gotten worse. Ice crystals stung across Ruby's cheek as she ducked out into the howling wind, burdened with supplies.

"At least this will probably keep the bats away," she yelled to Blake, shielding her eyes to try and figure out where the path was.

Blake nodded, realizing a second later that Ruby probably wasn't even able to see the gesture. The snowstorm- no, the _blizzard,_ was unrelenting, and she could barely see anything other than Ruby's bright red cloak, even with the girl standing right beside her. Blake threw her hand out to catch her fearless leader's arm when the younger girl tried to step out into the arms of the storm.

"Ruby, hang on," she shouted, glaring out at the snow. She thought Ruby might have said something back, but wasn't really able to make it out over the storm, so she simply took Gambol Shroud's ribbon and tied one end around Ruby's wrist before pulling her close enough to speak directly into her ear. "Stay here a second - let me see if I can find the road."

With the other girl as her lifeline, Blake pushed out into the snow, immediately regretting her decision as she was battered by needle-like waves of icy winds. No matter how far she ventured, or which direction she turned, everything was white. Everywhere the same looming, taunting, unforgiving wall of white. A bleak pit of frustration and sadness settled in her gut when she reached the end of the ribbon's length but still hadn't seen a scrap of anything other than snow. There was no way they could trek through this on foot.

Blake allowed herself a disappointed growl as she followed her ribbon back to Ruby, stopping frequently to brace herself against relentless gusts of wind that threatened to take her the ground. When she finally made it back to Ruby's side, a scowl darkened her features as she realized she'd returned from a completely different direction than she'd started out from. She gripped Ruby's arms, leaning forward to speak into her ear once more, "It's no good."

Ruby had wrapped one arm around the porch railing while Blake was searching.

"Yeah," she had to yell over the wind. It felt like giving up, but she repeated, "Yeah," and turned, fighting her way up the steps.

She and Blake shut the door. Ruby slumped against the smooth wood in the relative stillness of the cabin. Unless they came up with a way to beat white-out blizzard conditions, they were stuck. Out of habit, or maybe just misplaced optimism, she checked her scroll.

Still no signal.

Outside, the storm continued to howl.

* * *

 **A/N: Surely nothing bad will happen while the team is separated, right? Riiiiiight.**

 **In other news, I'm in Florida! My first tropical storm experience was somewhat underwhelming- I didn't know it was happening and accidentally wound up biking in it. Whoops. (These things do come in sort of quickly, I hear.) A big tree fell down, though, so that was cool.**

 **Anyway, complete opposite weather from writing a blizzard. Ha. Tune in next time and we'll check on Team Freezerburn.**

 **\- Fiercesomest**


	16. Freezing and Burning

**A/N: GUYS, sorry this is late, yikes, studying for summer finals is a nightmare when you work full time, eheh, ahh, yeah sorry u.u**

 **Also this is going to sound impossibly cruel but it was nice to finally see Weiss injured after leaving her mostly unscathed in literally every previous work in this timeline. Something so much fun about lavishing care on a pile of prickles.**

 **Sorry again for the wait!**

 **HUGS,**  
 **Defenestrator**

* * *

The howling wind was incessant. Grating on the ears. _Loud._ Loud enough to wake the dead. Or in this case, Yang. Amethyst eyes reluctantly fell open, and the brawler pushed herself up into a sitting position, spluttering and brushing snow from her face and hair. She was buried in the stuff, as was everything else.

"Ruby?" Pristine white snow blanketed a flat plain all around her. Yang squinted at her surroundings, trying to piece together the last things she remembered before blacking out. She had been with her sister - they'd found...

"Weiss?" But this wasn't the bell tower. Wrestling her windswept hair out of her face, Yang got to her feet, brushing more snow from herself. She froze - looking back out over the ground. The wind kept on howling and raging, but the powdery white surface refused to budge. The sight was unnerving, and she whirled around, finding a pair of footprints leading away, out into the distance.

 _Goodbye._

The word darted through her head like a shadow, unspoken, but unmistakable. "Blake? is that you?"

 _Goodbye._

Not even the howling wind could keep her from hearing it again. She whirled in place, looking for someone, anyone. There was no one. Yang shut her eyes, hard, willing the world to make sense, but opening her eyes again only greeted her with a world that refused logic.

The ruins of an enormous tower loomed before her. Cracked, snow-covered gears littered the icy ground.

 _Goodbye._

"Stop!" Yang covered her ears in a desperation, unable to keep from hearing that blasted word.

 _Goodbye._

"Don't go..." No sooner had she spoken, Yang felt a presence appear behind her. She spun around to find herself staring down at a pair of very familiar teal eyes.

A hand reached out to touch her nose.

 _Boop._

Yang's eyes snapped open, and she shot into a sitting position - at least, she got halfway up before her body screamed in protest and forced her right back down. A wave of nausea followed soon after for having moved so quickly, but all Yang could do was cough, each spasm resulting in a searing jolt of pain as she tried to look at her surroundings.

It was dark, but she could just make out the shapes of bodies all over the floor. With a sharp intake of breath that spurred a second round of coughs, for one terrifying moment the brawler wondered if she'd been taken to the morgue by mistake. It was only when she caught sight of Weiss lying on a cot beside her, more specifically, the even rise and fall of her chest, that she realized this was probably the clinic.

Confused and disoriented, Yang opened her mouth to speak, but instead was overtaken by another coughing spat.

"Just get it out," a man's voice addressed her. Curtis. He was motioning for something, and in a moment Cyan brought him a towel and bowl of something warm. It smelled like soup. "You feel sick? We can get you a bucket if you need it."

The question didn't quite register with Yang, and when she shook her head, it was in an effort to clear her swimming vision. She hated the way it made the room spin. With one last resounding cough, she spat something dark and red into her hand, but ignored it in favor of slowly pushing herself into a sitting position. Focusing on her breathing, Yang placed her hands to her temples like blinders and shut her eyes, trying to force herself to think.

Everything was a disjointed mess. Liliac... lightning... bell tower... so much ice...

"Ruby," the brawler's mind latched on to the last face she remembered seeing before she blacked out - those silver eyes, wide with worry. Yang grasped at the arm hovering nearest to her, trying to focus on whoever it was connected to. "Where is my sister?"

"Out getting supplies with your other teammate," came the even reply as Cyan put her free hand on her shoulder, trying to avoid the worst bruises. "She'll be back. Just rest for now."

Yang completely missed the command, her thoughts already drifting in a completely different direction. "Other teammate..." Did she mean Blake? Well it certainly wasn't Weiss. But.. hadn't Blake been at the mines? A violent gust of wind rattled the windows, drawing Yang's eyes to the raging blizzard outside. Her heart sank at the sight. Blake and Ruby were _out there?_ Her grip on Cyan's arm tightened a fraction, "How long have I been out?"

"A few hours," Cyan's hand moved to Yang's to gently loosen her already powerful grip, "You and... well, you're the first up."

Curtis set the bowl and towel down on a low table at the edge of the cot and touched the back of his hand to the heiress's forehead.

He shook his head, "Still cold."

Amethyst eyes finally returned to the girl in white. Well, white and red. A whole lot of red, actually, from what she could see peeking out from underneath the double-layered blankets she'd been covered in... "Weiss..." Yang reached an arm out to grip the edge of her teammate's bloodied sheets, grimacing as she pulled herself to stand beside Curtis.

She took hold of one of Weiss's disconcertingly cool hands - no one should still be this cold. "Hey..." fear edged the brawler's soft words, "Hey come on, princess. No sleeping on the job..."

The heiress remained quiet and still beneath the covers. She was very pale, and her white hair still had dried streaks of blood in it.

"We've been having trouble keeping her warm," Cyan cast a glance across the kitchen, which was littered with injured townsfolk, coughing, sniffling, huddled together. Despite the ice and wind outside, the space, packed so close with people, wasn't too cold. They'd run out of blankets, however. A kettle started to rattle a bit and Cyan had to pick her way across the floor to attend to it while Curtis remained with the two girls.

"Your sister patched her up some," he offered, drawing the blankets back a few inches to show the smooth mark on Weiss's shoulder where the bite used to be. "She lost a lot of blood though. You don't look so great yourself, if you don't mind me saying."

Though Curtis's words were probably well-intentioned, Yang had stopped listening the moment she'd looked across the clinic to Cyan. The brawler stopped moving altogether as her slowly-widening eyes wandered from person to person. Survivor to survivor. There were so many - so many _injured_ \- all terrorized by the Liliac _she_ had set loose. Guilt crashed over Yang in a wave of suffocating regret, but she stood her ground.

At least, until she looked down at Weiss again, deathly still underneath a mountain of apparently useless blankets. Seething, Yang made a silent vow to personally exterminate every single Liliac that dared cross her path ever again. How many of those things had Weiss fought, trapped in that bell tower, _alone_? Yang's expression darkened, clouded by hazy memories of a cavern filled with an impossible number of blood-red eyes hanging above her, by the way her own eyes had shifted to red to match...

How close had they come to losing a teammate because she couldn't control her temper? How many _townspeople_... Yang sat heavily on her cot, covering her face with one hand and keeping hold of Weiss's with the other. She needed to stop thinking. She needed to do something - anything helpful, but Curtis was right, she was just as much of a wreck as the literally-icy heiress lying before her.

Moving at all was an exercise in concealing agony, one that she was admittedly skilled at, but she could only keep up an act for so long, and she refused to let herself go down in the thick of things again. Yang's gaze, which had been resting absentmindedly on Weiss's eerily peaceful face, trailed down the once-white sleeve of her bolero, finally coming to rest on the pale ice-cold hand still gripped in her own.

Maybe... she could still be useful. Earnest amethyst locked onto Curtis, flicking briefly to Weiss. "Can she be moved?" Seeing the questioning look in his eyes, Yang released Weiss's hand, dragged herself onto her cot, and leaned back on one elbow, motioning with her free arm to have the heiress laid atop her, "You can't keep her warm, right? Give her to me, doc. I'm basically heat incarnate."

His tired eyes lit up. Apparently he hadn't forgotten the bursting-into-flame thing from the other night. "Are you...?"

He put his hand close to the fiery blonde. Sure enough, if he hadn't known about her semblance he would have sworn she had a fever.

"It's worth a shot," he wiped his face on his sleeve and resettled his glasses.

When Cyan returned, the two of them rolled Weiss's coat up and stuck it between Yang's pillow and the wall so she could prop herself up more easily. Then, carefully, carefully, they transferred the heiress to the bigger girl's arms, and covered both of them with a couple of the thicker blankets.

"How's that?" Cyan asked, tugging the blankets so they were even, her brown eyes searching for anything she could do to make them more comfortable.

" _Cold,_ " Yang bit out in surprise. The heiress was a block of ice in her arms, soaking up every ounce of heat she was given. It was fine though - Yang had plenty of warmth to share, not to mention it helped offset the stifling heat of the blankets. It certainly didn't hurt that Weiss was also more or less acting like a human ice-pack for the brawler's endless injuries. Yang gave the smaller girl a light squeeze, "But fine. She's going to be fine."

Weiss remained still, breathing softly. She was light, and very pale.

"Try to eat something if you can," Cyan instructed, again making Yang aware of the bowl of soup on the bedside. Curtis had already moved to see to a man with a bad cough and a gash in his arm. Others were hungry, a kid by the door started crying and someone, one of his neighbors perhaps, took him on her lap to try and quiet him down.

Outside, the storm howled.

It was going to be a long day.

* * *

"Do you think it'll stop soon?" Ruby scooted a little closer to the hearth, hugging her knees to her chest. She was wearing her red hat now, and a white scarf she'd found in Weiss's bag. The fire crackled in its place, flaring some when a bit of wind got down the chimney.

She and Blake had slid the couch up close to the fireplace to help catch the warmth it gave out, but it was still freezing cold. The pipes were frozen solid. None of them had thought to leave the water dripping overnight, but the temperature had dropped so low it might not have made a difference.

Blake opened her eyes, pulled from her brief catnap by Ruby's hushed question. Her Faunus ears swiveled away from the crackling fireplace to focus on the sounds of the raging storm outside. If anything, it sounded _worse_ than it had earlier. "I don't know," she sighed, feeling the weight of uncertainty press her back into the couch cushions, crushing her attempt to sound neutral. One thing she did know at least, was that the storm, despite its harshness, was truly a blessing if it was keeping the Grimm at bay.

"Ruby," she caught a glimpse of silver looking her way before continuing, "I wasn't completely honest with you at the clinic." At Ruby's confused expression, Blake averted her gaze, returning to staring at the flames dancing in the hearth. "I didn't want to say anything in front of the townspeople but... That swarm of Liliac - that was just the one den Yang and I found."

The dim light of the fireplace flickered within haunted amber as Blake recalled the image of Yang standing beneath an inverted sea of red and black. "There were tunnels in that den that led deeper into the mountainside," her ears flattened a bit at the results of even the most basic calculations to derive the sheer numbers they were dealing with. "This entire mountain range could be filled with those things."

Ruby didn't say anything. Instead, she watched the fire, searching the patterns in the orange-hot coals for a way too fix this.

"Chuck will be back with the plane pretty soon. Just a couple of days," she tried to sound like days weren't a big deal, but when things had gone from bad to worse in minutes... She got up and grabbed a couple of blankets and joined Blake on the couch, "If this lets up before then, maybe we can seal the entrance you found. If this whole place is... it might not help a ton, but... I mean... something's better than nothing, right?"

Blake offered Ruby a tired smile of thanks at the blanket being placed around her shoulders and pulled her legs up underneath the cocoon of warmth the younger girl was fashioning for them. Truthfully, she wanted nothing more than to give in to Ruby's optimism, but visions of her bizarre nightmare nagged at the back of her mind. The screams, the debris, the ruined desolate town...

James Point was already in shambles from one attack. How would it fare against a second, with two of their team down for the count? She thought of Yang and Weiss, lying motionless in the clinic filled with countless injured. What had even happened to the people she had left behind at the mines? She thought of Gale... or what was left of her.

Blake shuddered. "Something might not be enough." Heaving a deep sigh, she turned tired, imploring eyes to her team leader, "Ruby... we need to call for backup."

The younger girl drew into herself, sitting a little apart from Blake as she pulled out her scroll. "Yeah. I've been trying."

 _Failed message delivery_.

 _Failed message delivery._

 _Failed message delivery._

Ruby's notifications were full.

She hadn't really wanted to show anybody, but now she tilted the screen so Blake could see. She'd been sending periodic calls for help ever since they got to the cabin.

"Someone mentioned an emergency radio set someplace in town. Before the snow started, I thought we could give that a shot," Ruby mumbled without a lot of conviction. If her scroll's signal couldn't get through, a crusty old radio didn't stand much of a chance.

Blake shut her eyes, both due to sheer fatigue and to keep Ruby from seeing the anxiety that was creeping up on her. The storm had cut them off. "Let's... get some sleep, then. No sense looking for an emergency radio while we're exhausted, right?"

" _And_ stuck in the middle of a blizzard," Ruby shoved her scroll back into her pocket. The fire crackled, making her think of Yang and how beat-up she'd looked once her semblance had cooled off.

Worry gnawed at her, and she tried to think back for a way they could've done things differently. She was the leader, after all- there had to have been a way to keep everyone safe. She'd just messed things up, splitting the team. Leaving Weiss. Ruby gripped one end of the snowy scarf she'd borrowed. Maybe she could... well, it was a little late to actually fix things, but she could do some major damage control. Or at least try to. That couldn't really happen till the storm died down, though. Fatigue caught up to her at last, and she huddled closer to Blake under the blankets, murmuring, "Wake me up when the fire burns down and I'll go and get some more wood off the porch."

* * *

Back at the clinic, the fire in the wood stove burned low. Someone had taken the liberty of hanging thick clothes over the window to help keep the heat in- possibly Cyan, or Curtis. The former slept with her head in her arms at the table, a coat draped over her, while the latter dozed against the low cupboards closest to the stove.

If they or any of the other townsfolk taking shelter there had thought to look at the clock ticking softly in the hallway, they would have known it was four o'clock. In the afternoon or morning was hard to tell, because it was dark, and what was the use of keeping track of time in a blizzard? Regardless of the hour, the wind moaned, and the snow continued to fall.

Such was the scene when Weiss stirred from her sleep.

She first became aware of the warmth, and then the darkness, and she had some vague notion, leftover from her dreams, that the heavy arms around her belonged to someone taking her away- from Beacon, from Ruby and the others. The threat she tried to growl came out as a soft, unintelligible whine.

Amethyst eyes snapped open at the muffled sound. Yang stifled a groan, woken from the restless sleep she'd finally drifted into after finishing off the soup Cyan had left for her. She tried to blink the sleep from her eyes, but any leftover bleariness was instantly replaced by adrenaline when she felt Weiss shift in her arms - heard another small whimper.

"Weiss-" Yang leaned forward, biting back a wince when the heiress's head brushed past one of the larger gashes on her shoulder. She shifted the smaller girl in her arms to get a better view of her face. Carefully, she brushed away the red-tinged strands of hair covering Weiss's forehead, just in time to catch the barest twitch of her scarred brow.

" _Weiss,_ yeah, that's it - come on," the brawler implored in a low voice, cupping the heiress's cheek to help support her head. "I've got you."

Weiss's thoughts were sluggish, confused, like her head was stuffed with molasses and cotton. Her shoulder ached. Her throat and mouth were dry and thick with a stale copper taste.

"Yang?" she rasped.

A pulse of relieved warmth radiated from the brawler, her posture relaxing at once. "Yep. The one and only." A cursory glance over at Curtis and Cyan revealed the two were finally down for the count. Fortunately, a quick check of her near vicinity revealed a mug of what looked like tea sitting next to her empty bowl.

"Here," Yang slid her hand from the heiress's face to grab the mug, finding it room temperature, which simply wouldn't do. She released just enough heat into the cup to make it and the liquid comfortably warm before gently pressing it to Weiss's lips. "Try to drink, okay?"

"Mmn," she took a little. Some ran down from the corner of her mouth. If it contained whatever herbs stimulated the drinker's aura, they were too diluted to have much effect. She was weak as a kitten, and choked trying to swallow.

When she'd gotten a little of the tea down, she turned her head from the drink, bleary and sick. Her words slurred as she struggled to remember what had happened, "Where's Ruby?"

Yang set the tea back down and tried to brush some of the stray liquid from the heiress's face, keeping busy to better hide the way her heart had seized at the mention of her little sister. "Ruby is... with Blake." That thought alone offered at least some reassurance, but her expression darkened when she cast a glance at what was visible of the window through the boards, clenching her teeth at the unwelcome sight of the very same storm that had been present when she'd first woken herself. "They're getting supplies," she simply repeated what Cyan had told her, absolutely needing her next words to be true, "They'll be back."

Weiss acknowledged Yang's words with a short hum, shutting her eyes against the dull pain in her shoulder. Her aura was low, so she would just have to be patient for it to heal. Rousing herself again, she tried to sit up, her left hand going to her side where Mytenaster should have been, "The Liliac. Where did..."

"Hey, woah, relax," Yang tried to help Weiss shift into more of an upright sitting position, ignoring the pressure it put on one of the scorch marks marring her leg. "Those things are toast - _actual_ toast. Gale fried them like crispy critters." It occurred to her then that she hadn't seen hide nor hair of the elderly woman since leaving her atop the roof of town hall. She made a note to ask about it later. "Anyway, If there's any left, there's no way they're getting through that storm," she motioned with her head towards the boarded up windows.

Weiss listened to the wind howl. Had Ruby and Blake gone out in that? Idiots. Ruby didn't even have gloves. She slumped against Yang, too tired to be overly concerned. Dust, her shoulder hurt. The ache had turned into a steady throb.

"Let me try the tea again?" The pain made her voice shake. She swallowed to steady it. "I can hold the cup this time."

"Yeah, sure," Yang retrieved the tea once more, pressing it into Weiss's waiting hands, only letting go once she was sure the other girl had a decent grasp. Keeping a loose hold around the heiress's middle, Yang leaned back a bit, fighting back fatigue as best she could.

"Curtis and Cyan are asleep right now but if you need anything at all just tell me, okay? You can poke me in the eye or something if I fall asleep too. Do it gently though. I still need them to see..." As she spoke, she reached out to the heiress with her aura, hoping the distraction might help her circumvent the barriers she usually encountered.

She really didn't have much aura to work with, and it was always a long shot with Weiss - they'd had nothing but trouble when trying to heal each other before - but without Ruby and Blake around... Yang eyed the heiress's shoulder, frowning at how the smaller girl winced any time it moved so much as a fraction. If nothing else, she had to at least _try._

The mug of tea spilled on the covers as Weiss hissed and curled forward, away from Yang, "No. No, you don't have aura for this."

Yang swore under her breath, grabbing the mug before it could crash to the ground and setting it back on the bedside. Trust Weiss to always be perceptive, even when half-dead. "Weiss, it's fine," she soothed, leaning forward as well but taking care to keep her grip around the other girl's waist loose - the last thing she wanted was for this to turn into a struggle.

"Whatever I've got, you can take. I'll just... I can sleep it off, no big deal," she tried to sound reassuring, tried to keep the still-cooler-than-optimal heiress close to her chest without caging her.

What was the harm in knocking herself out for another day or two if it meant securing Weiss's recovery? She knew Ruby understood how her semblance worked - Ruby would expect to find her asleep for at least another day or so. But Weiss... Ruby would want to see Weiss awake and well when she returned.

"But you-" the brawler grimaced at the way her voice hitched at the memory of the heiress's silent, still form, "you looked like you might never wake up, you know?" Yang dropped her gaze to the sheets, guilt eating away at her more thoroughly than a horde of Grimm.

She was the reason Weiss was such a wreck in the first place. She was responsible.

When Weiss didn't respond, Yang ducked her head down to touch her forehead to the back of the heiress's matted hair, once again trying to reach out with her aura, gentle and inviting. "I have to make sure that doesn't happen."

If Weiss had been in a better state, she would have told Yang that it didn't make sense to dump aura on her- she was a notoriously slow healer and even if the Liliac were gone James Point would need every active huntress they could get. Those thoughts came to her only half-formed, though, and she was too muddled and hazy to be able to articulate any of them.

"Half," she murmured, her grip on consciousness slipping. She closed her eyes, "Don't use it all."

"Roger that," Yang smiled as she felt the heiress relax back into her embrace. Slowly, smooth as flowing molasses, her aura completely enveloped the heiress's own, finding the usual spear-like prickles and barbs replaced with a yielding softness that that peacefully accepted any offered warmth. Whether it was due to Weiss finally accepting her on some level, or simply because the smaller girl was already starting to fall back asleep, Yang wasn't sure, but it was heartening all the same.

The brawler ultimately kept her word, sort of, giving maybe just a little over half (probably closer to three quarters, if she were to be honest), before cutting herself off. The room itself seemed to grow darker as she slumped back against the wall and pulled the covers up and around them, taking care to avoid Weiss's shoulder. Even as fatigue finally won the battle and her eyes began to drop shut, she looked to the window, waiting, watching for a flash of color within the endless swirling white.


	17. Snowbound

Ruby woke up snuggled in close to Blake under the blankets on the couch. The older girl's shirt smelled like sweat and stone mortar dust. The fire had burned down to embers and Ruby could still hear the wind. When she sat up and breathed out slowly, she could see her breath.

Fully awake now, she pulled her cloak's hood up to keep warm as she slipped off the couch. Her scroll didn't have signal and its battery indicator blinked near empty. Ruby glanced at the outlet in the wall, but the overhead lights were still out. No power.

Ruby stuck the electronic device into a pocket of her backpack and got to work building up the fire while she tried to think of what to do.

The storm would probably keep the Grimm away, so that was good. But it also meant they couldn't get back to the clinic, to Weiss and Yang. The way the embers flickered, hiding low among the ash and dead coal gave her an unpleasant feeling deep in her stomach. Yang had looked pretty bad when she'd left. Ruby broke up some of the smaller twigs, suddenly anxious to rekindle the flames.

She never should have left. Crescent Rose worked just fine without bullets and there weren't any Liliac anyway. They could have gotten blankets from someplace closer. Then they wouldn't be stuck here.

How long had it been anyway? Ruby plunked a larger piece of wood on the fire for it to work on while she dug her scroll back out.

9:00 a.m.

"Blake," she jumped back on the couch, scroll in hand, "Blake, look."

Blake woke with a start, leaping from the couch and flinging her blanket aside, eyes wide and Faunus ears instinctively searching for any unusual sounds. "What! What is it?" Sensing no immediate danger, she turned back to find a Ruby-sized shape sitting patiently underneath her discarded blanket. "Oh." Ears half flattened in embarrassment, she pulled on a corner of the blanket to unbury her team leader. "Sorry."

Ruby posed, dramatically showing off the time and date as Blake pulled the blanket away.

Blake's Faunus ears fell flat at the numbers on the screen. They had been asleep for almost twelve hours - hours where any number of things could have happened to the clinic, to Yang and Weiss.

"We have to get back," her eyes darted to the hearth, watching the flames crackle and pop to better discern the fireplace's roar from the roaring winds of the storm still raging outside. Blake's grip tightened on the blanket in her hands. The storm hadn't let up in the slightest. "...Somehow."

Ruby dropped the act and braced both hands on her crossed legs on the couch. "Yeah. Think we could use a rope, or something?"

That way they wouldn't get lost, at least.

Blake's gears were spinning a mile a minute, fresh and re-oiled from a healthy dose of food and sleep. "Rope could work," she crossed her arms, finding she felt comfortable enough around Ruby to allow herself to think out loud, "If we tied one end to you, and one end to me... one of us could hold on to a building while the other tried to find a second building..." she started to pace, wandering back and forth in front of the fire.

"We would need some kind of signal - maybe a gunshot? Then the one who is farther out could help pull the other one to their position, rinse and repeat..." Blake paused mid-step, to look to her team leader, "If we had a map of the town to follow, maybe we could work our way back to the clinic."

The "plan" sounded absolutely ridiculous when Blake thought about it for longer than the ten seconds it had taken her to come up with it, but anxiety was eating her alive, and judging by the light burning in Ruby's eyes, the younger girl seemed just as eager to do anything other than sit and wait.

"Yeah! Okay," Ruby jumped up and dug in her pack for a piece of paper to draw a map on. "We just need some really long rope, to get from here to the first houses, right? That and... and..."

Suddenly she realized the wind seemed quieter than before. Was the storm letting up? Ruby scurried to the window.

It was too dark out to see, so she went to the door, cracking it open to take a look.

It was like looking into an ice cave. Ruby opened the door a little wider so she could see better by the scant light of the fire and some of the snow spilled in onto the floor. Most of it kept its shape, though—a knee deep wash of white sloping up to meet the roof of the porch. "Uh... this... might kind of sort of mess up our rope plan."

Outside, above the deep, deep snow, the storm raged on.

* * *

Snow. Snow, snow, and more snow. If Yang never saw the stuff again for the rest of her life, it would be too soon. Unfortunately, right now it was all she could see. The brawler glanced up at the small space between the window's boards, hating the solid wall of white that had built up, completely blocking her view of the outside world.

A dazed glare was all she could manage from her spot in the center of the floor, surrounded by the smallest children and the elderly - those who needed her heat the most in the clinic's deepening cold. Between that, and bolstering Weiss's healing process any time the heiress would let her, Yang felt as thought she was stuck in a perpetual state of delirium.

Amethyst eyes drifted over to Weiss, curled up beneath the pile of blankets where she'd left her. Her breathing was even, peaceful, and Yang allowed herself a small smile at the sight. At least the heiress was starting to look a tiny bit better. _Dust_ did that girl heal slowly. The brawler shuddered to think just how long it would have taken Weiss to get to this point on her own.

Right now though, she seemed to be asleep, something she wished she'd been doing more of herself. Quite a few of the townsfolk had taken to dozing as much as they could to stave off both boredom and the cold, including the small girl currently sleeping in her lap. It was the girl she and Ruby had first rescued before going to find Weiss.

Ruby.

Yang absentmindedly ran her fingers through the girl's dark locks, trying not to think about her little sister or Blake and failing miserably.

They had never returned.

No one ever returned, in the end.

Yang shook her head, clearing away the darker memories that danced at the edge of her addled thoughts. She held them at bay, absolutely refused to dwell on them. This was different. It was _different._ Ruby would come back, and Blake would be with her. She just... didn't know when. How long had they even been gone now?

A quick glance at the clock on the wall didn't help. The thing still said it was 4pm, its battery having suffered a premature death from the sheer cold brought about by the power outage... and how long ago had _that_ been? They might have been able to track the time at one point, but that same power outage had starved their last working scroll into submission... yesterday? Two days ago?

The only thing she did know was that it had been long enough for the food supply to dwindle dangerously. The clinic, well stocked as it was, had not been properly equipped to house _and_ feed forty-plus injured. At some point very soon they would have to restock their supplies, which meant venturing out into the storm...

Yang dragged her gaze back to the window, wishing she could just... melt everything. She was restless. Going stir crazy, even. And yet, she was _so_ tired. All she could think to do was heal up, get herself and Weiss and the townsfolk better so that they would be ready to help if Ruby and Blake returned. When. _When_.

The little girl shifted in her lap, murmuring something about her mother.

Expression blank, Yang leaned forward, placed her elbows on her knees, and dropped her face into her hands.

The front door banged open and injured folks shifted to let Curtis get through with an arm load of wood. He was bundled up with a scarf over his mouth and face, and every inch of him from his boots to his dark, short-cropped hair was covered in snow.

"Found it?" Cyan looked up from redressing a gash in one woman's leg. She spoke softly, and Curtis responded in kind.

"It's not like it moved," he set the fuel in the narrow space by the wood stove and removed his glasses, shaking them to get some of the snow off. His tracks were footprints of pink snow. "Afraid the floor in the front room is kind of a mess."

"We'll worry about it later." When they had spare cloths and sheets to clean with. "Come eat something."

"I'm alright," Curtis let one of the less injured folks work at rebuilding the fire. The light highlighted the traces of grey in his hair, close to his ears. They had maybe a day's worth of food, and they'd already been scraping the backs of the cupboards, stretching what they had with their dwindling grain supply. Curtis cast a quick glance at Yang, looking away before he inquired in a general way, "I don't suppose anyone feels well enough to make a trip next door?"

They would have to tunnel through snow to get there, and who knew what they might find waiting for them in the ice-bound ruins?

Yang's head lifted from her hands. She put on a winning smile for the crowd, "A trip outside? Count me _in,_ doc." She gently extracted herself from the girl on her lap and handed her over to the elderly man sitting behind them before getting to her feet, masking her brief shudder of fatigue as one of exhilaration.

"I've been going a little stir crazy anyway." Yang offered an apologetic smile to those who had huddled around her for warmth, but she wasn't sorry at all. The clinic was filled to the brim with children, elderly, the severely injured, and a narcoleptic Weiss. There was absolutely _no_ way she would let any if them out in that storm beyond the porch where Curtis had ventured. Yang turned her smile to the ever-patient physician. "So, which direction am I headed?"

Curtis motioned Yang over to the door, turning first to Cyan, "Pass me the big pot?"

She pulled a large stock pot- not as large as the one with broth on top of the stove, but still a fair size-and passed it over the folks on the floor, apologizing.

"We'd ask the Brooks about checking out their house if they were here-they're the neighbors," Curtis indicated through the wall to the north with a nod of his head, speaking low through his scarf. He handed Yang the big pot. "Snow's piled up high, and they're closest, so we're going to dig our way over. Sound good?"

Yang blinked down at the pot, turned it over in her hands, then winked at Curtis. "Yeah, I dig it." She flexed her fists and extended both halves of Ember Celica with a grin, "I've been told I'm good with my hands. Lead the way!"

Curt gave her a weary grin, his footsteps heavy through the mess of blood and melting snow in the entryway, "Watch your step."

The clinic, at the back of the level shelf much of the town sat on, tucked in close to the cliff, was subject to some pretty major snowdrifts. Curtis had already cleared a path through the knee-high snow at the front door to the log pile on the porch. The snow rose in an even swoop from the front door to the lip of the porch roof, as somebody had dumped a world of white sand on the tiny clinic and it had spilled to fill all the gaps it could reach.

"Cy and I pretty much hibernate when it gets like this," Curtis said, retrieving a wide snow shovel from beside the door and wading through the thick powder snow up to the wall of white. Suddenly, horrified he jumped to face Yang, "Dust, did I forget to offer you a scarf? Or long pants? _Dust_ , aren't you freezing?"

"Pfft, I don't even know the meaning of the word." Yang waved a hand dismissively before pressing the backs of her fingertips to Curits's bristly cheek to demonstrate. His face was a good few degrees cooler, even bundled as he was. Pleased at his shocked expression, she withdrew her hand and stalked over to the literal wall of snow before them.

The brawler positively beamed at the frigid blockade. This _had_ to be why Ruby and Blake were so late. There was no other explanation she was willing to accept.

The smile faded as she took in the sheer amount of snow. How were those two supposed to get through all this? This needed to be remedied right now.

She set the pot in the snowdrift and reached down to grab a handful of powdery white, finding it wasn't quite as powdery as she'd expected. The snow crunched pleasantly in her fist. With a roll of each shoulder and a quick stretch of her arms, Yang cracked her knuckles and threw a smile back at Curtis, already feeling more energized with a solid, physical task to focus on. "Well, let's get to it!"

* * *

Blake silently cursed the very existence of snow and ice and cold weather in general. Her gaze darted up to the small circular pane of glass resting closer to the ceiling, across from the loft. She had to move around the couch and partially into the kitchen to actually find an angle where she could look through it, but she thought she could see movement, swirling. "Do you think that window opens?"

"I don't know, Blake. We'd have to run on top of the snow," Ruby drooped. Running on top of the stuff was possible if she used her semblance, but any slow-downs meant she'd sink in up to her waist, or deeper, and have to get out again. Plus she wouldn't be able to see anything. _Plus_ all the other houses might be buried too. How would she get in if she found one? How would Blake be able to follow?

She found herself wishing for her partner's glyphs. Scratch that- she wished for her partner. Ruby slumped on the back of the couch, mumbling into her crossed arms, "Weiss would be perfect for this."

The sight of her usually spirited team leader slouched over in defeat undercut Blake's drive, sending her desire to try their ten-second plan into a tailspin. It was probably for the better. The plan was reckless. It would get them killed at best. It didn't matter that they were trained fighters - even a fully fledged huntress couldn't fight nature itself.

Faunus ears dipping low with the weight of failure, Blake moved back to the couch and slumped down next to her team leader to stare quietly into the fire. Light cracks and pops of the smallish flame gave her hope, but those pleasant, familiar sounds of the fire were currently locked in a fierce battle with the raging winds outside, each mournful howl tainting that very same hope with swirls of anxiety.

If the blizzard had snowed them in all the way out here on the outskirts of town, how badly had clinic suffered, sitting so close to the mountain? Curtis and Cyan had already been fretting over how difficult it was to keep Weiss warm... What if the clinic had been buried _entirely_? What if the roof had collapsed under the weight of the snow?

Blake's ears flattened at a particularly fierce gust of wind. It was as if the blizzard was mocking them, _chastising_ them for having used snow as a mere plaything days earlier, now baring its icy white fangs to back them into a helpless corner. It was not a pleasant feeling, knowing just how useless her semblance was for this situation.

Glyphs though...

"Yes she would be," Blake agreed with Ruby's earlier statement, adding quietly, "So would Yang."

How easy would it be for her partner's semblance to cut a flaming swath through the snowdrifts? Actually, Blake wasn't entirely sure how or if that would work - she tried to stay as far away from snow as often as possible and as such didn't fully understand how the stuff functioned - but it was a nice image. Not to mention, at the very least, those warm hugs of hers would help stave off the cold...

Blake cast a sideways glance at Ruby, internally flinching at the younger girl's completely downcast expression. Maybe mentioning her big sister, who had apparently taken a direct hit from the very lightning that had disintegrated an entire horde of Grimm, hadn't been the best idea.

Seeing Ruby so worried over Yang made Blake incredibly nervous. After all, Ruby was naturally the most familiar with her sister's semblance. She had been the one to assure her the brawler was totally fine after being thoroughly pummeled into the ground by an Atlesian Paladin. Was lightning different somehow?...

A promise she once made to Yang flashed through her head, to look after Ruby if anything ever happened, filling Blake with equal parts fierce pride and devastating sorrow. She bit her lip, reaching out to tap Ruby's shoulder. Once those quicksilver eyes looked her way, Blake opened her arms, wordlessly offering a hug.

It's what Yang would have done.

Yang hugs were frequent and (often unavoidable, though she sure wouldn't avoid them now), but Blake hugs were rare. Ruby would never turn down a Blake hug.

She slid into the embrace, resting her chin on the bigger girl's shoulder, breathing in the cold, woodsy scent of her hair.

A light came on in her mind. She jumped back, "Ooh! I've got an idea. Not a get-there-now sort of idea, but when the snow stops..."

Blake perked up immediately. Hugs really _did_ work on Ruby. She leaned forward. "What kind of idea?"

"... the kind that _might_ involve dissecting a bedframe," Ruby unfolded Crescent Rose in a practiced sweep that locked all of the weapon's springs and bolts into place, "Wanna help?"

The welcome sight of a smile back on Ruby's face brought about one of Blake's own. "Of course."

* * *

Curtis and Yang dug in shifts, shoveling snow and clearing out a tunnel big enough for them to walk upright in. They dumped most of the extra snow on the porch and packed it down to make space for more. Curtis let Yang warm the curved roof so it iced and remained solid, and she held onto the big pot when it was his turn to dig, melting snow for extra water in case the pipes froze up.

It took hours. Snow was always heavier than it looked, and hauling it out of the tunnel took time. They broke for a light lunch of broth and flatbread, courtesy of Cyan, before, finally, Curt's shovel struck stone.

"Should be the corner of the house," he called over his shoulder in the narrow ice tunnel. They widened the space, melting or packing snow wherever they could make it go in an effort to find the window. Maybe inside they'd find a nice, cozy scene—the neighbors intact. Who knew?

What they found instead was a hole. The mortar around the stones had been scraped or torn away, so when Curtis laid his shovel aside and dug, his arm broke through into a dark, cold space.

A hole like this meant the Liliac had broken in. Which didn't bode well for survivors.

The gap in the wall was about two feet in diameter, or would be once they dug the snow out. Wide enough to crawl inside one at a time. Curtis leaned back against the packed wall of their snow tunnel, glancing at Yang and motioning to Ember Celica. "Are those things loaded?"

The brawler flexed her fingers. "They don't need to be." She slid past Curtis, motioning for him to stand back a bit. Once he had shuffled a few feet away, she placed her hands against the last remaining barrier of snow between them and the opening in the wall. Feet shoulder width apart, head bowed, Yang called upon her semblance, feeling her hair rise with the heat of the familiar flames that began to flicker about her.

The flames were weaker than usual, hindered by the minuscule amount of aura she had to work with, but even still the snow didn't stand a chance. It gave way with the slightest bit of force, allowing Yang to push right through and drop heavily into the house.

Her flames illuminated a scene she wanted no part of.

Everything was in tatters - the furniture had been shredded almost beyond recognition, the stone walls bore deep groove marks. The flickering light of her semblance bounced back crimson-black from the floor, slick with frozen blood from the three bodies scattered in pieces across the stone floor.

Grimm had definitely gotten inside.

Just as she turned back to warn Curtis about the fate of his neighbors, a dark black form slammed into Yang's face from above, knocking her away from the opening and smashing her unceremoniously to the icy floor. She knew what it was before she even opened her eyes to see the Liliac's teeth gleaming white in her flames, reaching for her neck. Yang's fists were faster.

A heavy _crunch_ echoed through the icy space when Ember Celica connected squarely with the Grimm's jaw, twisting its head completely around with a light _snap_ and sending the creature flying back into the darkness from which it came.

The small boost she'd gotten from the surprise attack made her semblance flare, illuminating the area just enough to see where exactly the Liliac had descended from. A loft, where at least five more pairs of red eyes hung from the ceiling, staring down at her. They started to shift.

The brawler didn't waste a single second before scrambling to her feet and throwing a fist forward, shooting an incendiary blast directly into the middle of them. She watched with grim satisfaction as the group exploded mid-descent with short-lived shrieks of fury.

As their ashes fell to mix with the bloodied ice, Yang took a deep breath. Running on adrenaline but still a bit winded, she stuck her head back through the opening to look up at Curtis, still pressed against the wall of their tunnel. "...It's a good thing they were though."

"I'd have volunteered as back-up, except..." he indicated his beat-up snow shovel up with a wry smile. It was obviously not much in the way of a damage-dealing weapon. The smile dropped away as he climbed through the gap into his neighbor's home.

He paused, noticing the broken forms scattered on the floor. His jaw tightened. They did a quick sweep for any remaining Grimm, but found none.

"Take these," Curtis loaded Yang up with the few quilts and sheets stripped off the beds in the loft. Their boots crunched over something that might have been bone. The color drained from Curt's face. "Let me... I'll gather up things from the kitchen."

"Yeah - oh, actually wait a sec," Yang draped the linens and blankets around her shoulders to free up her hands, taking care to wrap them around herself enough times to keep from dragging in the... mess on the floor. She grabbed one of the pillows and stripped it of its case with practiced ease. "Here," she handed the pillowcase to Curtis, before stripping another pillow of its case for herself. "Easier to carry more stuff this way."

Curtis hesitated. Instead of taking the pillowcase, he touched his gloved hand to Yang's elbow, "Go on back. There's no hurry here."

Yang caught a glimpse of something familiar in the older man's eyes, but she couldn't quite tell if he was being kind, or if he just needed to be alone. Either way, it didn't seem safe to leave him behind... but they _had_ swept the entire house, and she should probably check on Weiss, and she _was_ starting to feel tired - her earlier rush of adrenaline was already running out. Building that ice tunnel had been exhausting - maybe even exhausting enough to help her actually sleep.

Still harboring a bit of reluctance, Yang draped both pillowcases over Curtis's arm and stepped back. "Yeah, the sooner we get everyone warmer the better." Turning on her heel, she headed down the stairs of the loft, calling over her shoulder, "Just be careful doc."

* * *

 **A/N: Yeah, the town's in bad shape, especially if there are pockets of Grimm around.**

 **Stay tuned,**

 **-Fiercesomest**


	18. Warmth

Yang's trip back to the clinic was short. She threw a reassuring smile and wave to Cyan, who was passing out soup to the injured in the small waiting area at the front, then pushed her way into the kitchen and deposited the heap of linens beside the sink. With that accomplished, she went to check on Weiss. A hand to the heiress's forehead brought a frown to her face. Still cold. This girl was officially a black hole for heat.

Fatigue finally caught up to her in a sudden rush, hitting like a brick wall, but Yang managed to keep herself standing by bracing herself on the edge of Weiss's cot. A quick glance around the room revealed not a single spot left to lie down. Even her own cot, she'd given to an elderly couple. Amethyst eyes traveled back town to the heiress's sleeping form, curled up on her side. Well... Weiss needed warmth, and she needed sleep...

With a quiet yawn, Yang lifted the wool blanket draped over Weiss and slid down to lie beside her. Two birds with one stone, right? Maybe Weiss would even appreciate the efficiency of it all. ...Or she would wake up and kill her.

Too tired to worry about any potential wrath she may wake to, Yang shifted so she was at least partially under the blanket, pulling the heiress into a hug and lightly resting her chin atop the smaller girl's head. The cot creaked under their combined weight, but Weiss was just small enough that they could both fit if they kept close.

The brawler shut her eyes, willing sleep to find her quickly.

Before it could, Weiss shifted in Yang's arms, trying to prop herself up on her elbow. She was still too low on energy, however, so she just rested her head on the pillow, her forehead against Yang's shoulder as she gathered strength.

"Did you go somewhere?" she mumbled when she could.

A disgruntled murmur was the brawler's initial response. She had been so close - she could still feel the fleeting embrace of sleep slipping away from the edges of her consciousness, but Weiss's voice had pulled her squarely into wakefulness. Yang let out a small resigned sigh.

"What, you miss me already?" The tail end of her quip rose into another yawn, and she kept her eyes shut, not wanting to think. Sadly, she knew Weiss wouldn't stop until she got an answer, so she saved Weiss the effort of asking, keeping her voice just above a whisper and giving the most basic response she could muster in her sleepy haze.

"We went next door..." and found more Grimm, and killed them, but it was too late anyway. The neighbors were dead - violently so. Bits and pieces and blood and bone and... Yang couldn't suppress the heavy shudder brought about by the fresh memory. She'd managed to keep her cool in front of Curtis, but... How many more houses would they find exactly like that one?

The sheer unyielding weight of guilt strained the brawler's voice when she tried to retreat from the bleak tangent her thoughts had traveled down. "We brought back... blankets."

"Mm," Weiss was hazy with sleep. Her fingers curled around the bottom edge of Yang's shirt and she held on as if her tired grip would ensure that Yang would stay and share warmth for a while.

Heavy footsteps sounded in the hall, and the front door shut. The other folks in the clinic murmured welcome-backs as Curtis tramped in, his jacket shedding snow. Their conversation was too quiet to reach the cots, but soon Cyan approached, bowl in hand.

"Yang, I'm sorry to keep you up, but I thought I heard Weiss a minute ago. She needs to eat."

With one, long, heavy sigh, Yang finally opened her eyes to smile up at Cyan. She pushed herself onto her elbow but found herself prevented from fully rising into a sitting position by the gentle tug of Weiss's grip on her shirt. The brawler all but melted at the sight. Weiss was really cuddly when she was delirious.

"Hey now, I'm not going anywhere," she half-whispered through a smirk, her hands easily covering the heiress's own, prying them loose so she could sit up properly. "But c'mon, you heard the lady," Yang pulled Weiss up into a sitting position as well, keeping an arm around her shoulders for stability, "it's chow time!"

"I'm tired," Weiss grumbled, trying to turn and lay back down. It was cold outside the blankets and the shoulder of her shirt was still torn. She tugged at it, feeling practically indecent.

A sharp clang and a bark of muffled pain sounded from Curtis's side of the kitchen. Cyan handed Yang the bowl of warm broth, excusing herself.

Yang tried to glance around Cyan's retreating form to see what was going on, but an insistent pressure on her shoulder caught her attention first. She looked down to find Weiss shoving against her. The smaller girl seemed to be exerting as much force as she could (which was about as much as a week-old kitten), trying to push them both back down to the cot. The brawler grinned, holding the broth out and away in case Weiss tried to flail as she leaned close to whisper in her ear, "It's sweet that you wanna sleep with me and all, but you really need to eat first."

"I hate you," Weiss slumped back against the pillows, brushing her hair out of her face with an unsteady hand. Dust, she was cold. She shivered and inched down farther under the covers, snuggling closer to Yang. "As soon as someone brings me an electric blanket, I'm having you replaced."

"Yeah yeah, I love you too," Yang let loose with a gentle wave of warmth as she pushed at Weiss's lips with the edge of the bowl, "now shut up and drink so we can go back to sleep."

Weiss growled and took a swallow. The broth was thin, laced with an herb that left a bitter taste in her mouth.

"There. Good night." the heiress turned away from Yang, pulling the blanket up a bit.

"Oh for the love of -Weiss, really." Yang slipped her arm around Weiss's shoulders and pulled her right back up, tightening her grip to keep the unruly heiress in place. She rolled her eyes at the ice-blue scowl being sent her way. This was almost worse than trying to feed Ruby medicine. "I'm flattered you would prefer to stay bedridden with me forever, but seriously, drink the soup. All of it. Do you want to get better or not?"

 _"_ I'm just not hungry," Weiss's growl was much closer to a whine as she strained against Yang's hold, "Stop crushing me."

"Uh huh." Yang let up on her grip only the slightest fraction, just in case she really was crushing the smaller girl. "And when was the last time you ate, huh? I'm guessing it was before you lost about, oh, what was it... _half_ your body weight in blood?"

"That's physically impossible. And I had tea," Weiss wasn't sure exactly when that had been, since it had been dark ever since she'd first woken up. She pushed at Yang's arm to get more space.

"Yyyeeeaaah, pretty sure that was a whopping one sip as well. You know, before you oh so gracefully knocked the rest of it onto the cot," the brawler held the bowl right in front of Weiss's face, pouring just enough heat into the broth to make it steam with what she hoped was an enticing warmth, "Come on~ it'll warm you up~"

"Fine. _Fine_ ," Weiss heaved a long suffering sigh. She was dishearteningly worn out from shoving at Yang's arm. "Just let me hold it."

Expertly suppressing a small cheer of victory, Yang started to lower the bowl to Weiss's outstretched hands, but lifted a skeptical eyebrow at the slight shivering of the heiress's arms. There already wasn't much food to go around - they couldn't afford another spill.

Determined to make sure this girl got at least one semi-decent meal in her, Yang snaked the hand resting on Weiss's exposed shoulder all the way down her outstretched arm, finally brushing the backs of heiress's shaking fingertips. Operating on a very open interpretation of Weiss's valiant-yet-foolhardy request to hold her own soup, Yang placed the bowl into her hands, quickly covering and supporting them with her own. "Okay then," she brought the bowl, hands and all, up to Weiss's lips once more, "drink up."

The heiress took two swallows this time. Small swallows. The soup _was_ very warm, and Yang was warm, and it was hard to keep her head up.

The soft glow of the fire in the open stove cast a low orange glow over the room. By the time it got to the far wall, it was full of shadows. She thought of Ruby, of the last time she'd seen her, when the younger girl had leapt from the belfry wall to go get Jack. Her red cloak was always patterned in light and shadow. Crimson and dark. Images flickered through her mind. Red eyes and black wings. Blood on her coat and hands, slick, dark by glyph-light. Stained black snow and icy, numbing cold.

Weiss was too tired to sort it all out. Yang was so warm. Her arm around her to steady her was solid and real. She couldn't remember the last time someone had held her this way. She closed her eyes and let Yang guide the bowl to her mouth, but she didn't drink anymore.

Yang was already tilting the bowl, but stopped when soup began to trickle down Weiss's face. She pulled back to get a better view, finding those familiar glaring ice-blue eyes had vanished behind heavy eyelids.

"Hey," Yang set the soup aside, "Weiss?" she used using her newly freed hand to brush the dribbles of liquid from the other girl's lips, quirking an eyebrow when the heiress didn't so much as flinch at the touch. Her brows then drew together in a frown when a light shake of Weiss's shoulders garnered no response. "You know, falling asleep while sitting up is one-hundred percent cheating."

Another span of silence followed. Either Weiss really was asleep, or she was faking masterfully. ...Or she had passed out. Either way, Yang was too tired to fight her mutual desire for a bit of shut-eye. "All right, okay," she sighed at last, flopping back onto the cot with Weiss in tow, "You win." Yang reached down to pulled the quilt up over them both and shut her eyes, focusing on Weiss's light, even breaths ghosting across her neck, "But you're finishing that soup when you wake up."

* * *

It was the fourth or fifth day by anyone's reckoning when the sounds of the wind howling in the eaves stopped.

"Looks like it's over," Curtis announced, a hand braced on the railing as he climbed down the steep stairs. Despite the circles under his eyes from days of transporting food and caring for the wounded, he was grinning. "Good to know the sun's still there."

The townsfolk managed to laugh, some of them, and even cheer, but they knew heaps of snow wouldn't do much to deter the Grimm should any of the flying types get the notion to attack again. They were still somewhat house-bound, cramped, miserable. And where could they go anyway? Their own homes had most likely been destroyed. Cyan wrapped her arms around Curt's neck as he brought the news to the kitchen.

Weiss groaned, half asleep on the cot as the noise of people talking spread to her side of the kitchen. She'd woken a few more times, endured Yang's encouragement to eat and drink, and had at one point allowed Cyan to use melted snow to help her get the dried blood out of her hair. Her loss of blood in general had taken a severe toll, however, and recuperating from it would take time.

She buried her face in Yang's shirt, temporarily abandoning her issues with personal space in favor of the heat of her teammate's semblance.

Fortunately for Weiss, there was no longer any awful smell to deal with, as Yang had stolen away the evening prior to melt a bit of snow and clean herself up under threat of dismemberment. It wasn't quite the hot shower Yang was still craving, but it had worked well enough to appease Weiss's overly refined sense of smell. She'd stolen the idea after watching Cyan use the same trick to wash out Weiss's hair.

To say it was silky wouldn't be quite right, but the once-again-white tresses were certainly soft beneath the brawler's hands as she idly ran her fingertips across the heiress's scalp. She took extra care to be gentle, and though she assumed her touch was merely being tolerated thanks to delirium, (blood loss seemed to keep Weiss from threatening to dismember her _too_ often) she hoped it was actually calming her somewhat. After all, these were the same tried and true soothing methods she'd used whenever Ruby was sick.

Ruby.

Yang left her eyes shut, listening over the low murmur of the townspeople for any sound of the driving, relentless snow that had split their team... but there was nothing. They were right, the storm was gone, and with it, the buffer she'd had against the trepidation that now settled in her gut. Without the blizzard to hold them at bay, either Ruby and Blake would return... or they wouldn't.

A wild urge to get up, head out into the snow-blanketed town and _search_ pulled the brawler's eyes right back open. She could do it. She could find them. She'd always healed quickly, and even if she was only maybe 80% at the moment, she felt more than well enough to march straight out that door and... leave the clinic defenseless...

Yang dropped her plan as quickly as it had come to mind. If Grimm came gallivanting back into town to clean up while she was out, it would be another disaster to add to her already miserable track record for this trip. And yet... the urge to at least try still lingered.

Amethyst eyes drifted over to the boarded window, quietly regarding the wall of white that had settled outside. Blake would tell her she was being irrational, remind her that her first duty as a huntress was to protect the people. And Ruby... her little sister would probably never forgive her if she let anything happen to Weiss.

A small smile worked its way across Yang's face when she pulled back slightly to look down at Weiss wrapped up in her arms, only for Weiss to follow, keeping her face pressed against the brawler's sternum, where the bulk of her heat radiated from. She never in a million years would have guessed that anyone so prickly could be such a cuddlebug. And her face was so peaceful when she wasn't trying to glare holes through you...

But Yang knew better. It didn't matter how sweet the heiress seemed as she dozed - she was an absolute _pill_ of a patient when she was awake. She had Ruby beat by a stubborn mile and then some. Still, Weiss had taken care of all of them through much worse, and a Xiao Long always repaid her debts.

Now, if she remembered correctly, Weiss was just about due for another round of soup, new and improved with herbs, spices, _and_ hearty chunks of the enormous stash of potatoes Curtis had found next door.

"Hey," she extracted her hand from Weiss's hair and brought it around to lightly pinch the cool, scarred cheek buried in her shirt, "guess what time it is~"

Weiss brought one arm up to shove at Yang's hand. She shifted to hide her face, her grumble muffled against the pillow.

Yang's eyes rolled, and she glanced over to Cyan for a bit of help, raising a brow at the sight of her hanging off of Curtis with a wide smile. "Hey Weiss," she prodded the half-sleeping girl's temple, trying to draw her attention away from drowsy warmth and soft downy pillows, "you think they're related or something?"

When Weiss, of course, did not respond, Yang leaned a bit closer, resting unassuming fingertips on her side. "Don't think I won't tickle you if you aren't up in the next 30 seconds."

"I'm awake. Stop touching me," the heiress curled herself smaller into Yang and tugged the covers up.

"Yeah sure, stop touching me she says," amusement sparkled in Yang's eyes, "That's pretty hard to do with you trying to push your face through my chest." She slipped her arm beneath Weiss's layered barrier of quilts and blankets, pushing aside a single earring to rest her hand on the heiress's neck, just beneath her ear. "Fifteen seconds, Weiss."

Weiss bridled at this touch, jerking up to throw off Yang's hand. She rubbed her eyes, snapping, "I'm _awake._ "

By now Cyan and Curtis were getting back to business. The young woman delivered a good-sized bowl of warm soup to Yang and Weiss.

"Well, good morning," she said, briefly inspecting Weiss's shoulder and Yang's bruises. "Feeling better?"

Yang pushed herself into a sitting position, accepting the bowl from Cyan with a wide smile and snaking an arm around Weiss's waist to maintain a source of heat for her. "Loads better." With a quick look across the room at the clinic's resident doctor gently tending to an old man's broken arm, curiosity finally got the better of her and Yang lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper, which really wasn't necessary considering the low murmur of discussion that had spread through the clinic with the storm's end. "So, Cyan, I've been meaning to ask... you and Curtis live here at the clinic and he's... your..." her shoulders lifted in time with her eyebrows in a questioning shrug.

"... partner?" Cyan completed the statement, brow furrowed. Not quite sure of what Yang was looking for, she supplied another term, "Husband?"

Amethyst eyes shifted between Cyan and Curtis, the girl's bright youthful face and demeanor a stark contrast to the doctor's worry-lined countenance. Slowly, Yang nodded. "Ohhhh okay. You like those older, mature types huh?" The brawler winked, "I get it."

Cyan's now empty hands sought her skirt pockets. She blushed deeply at the subject, "Can I get you anything before I go check on everyone upstairs?"

Weiss, not really wanting anything but sleep, shifted her shoulders to communicate her discomfort to Yang while simultaneously not making any real effort to get away.

"Yeah, can you get this one some manners?" Yang smiled as she tried to offer the bowl of soup to Weiss, only to meet drowsy indifference. "Wwweeeeiiiisssss," she mimicked Ruby's habit of drawing out the heiress's name, watching elegant white brows furrow more and more deeply the longer the solitary syllable was stretched into infinity, "C'mon, don't waste the hard work Cyan put in to making this delicious meal for youuuu."

"Actually, earplugs would be nice," Weiss held a hand up between her mouth and the bowl Yang was trying to push on her, "Or a blood transfusion."

"If we were equipped to give you one, we would," Cyan laid a gentle hand on Weiss's forehead, testing her temperature. "You'll just have to wait till your body takes care of it. In the meantime, you really should eat."

The heiress gave a wordless whine, sinking down in Yang's arms.

"You heard the lady!" With a thankful wink to Cyan, Yang pressed the bowl into Weiss's hands, happy that the scowling girl had gained back at least enough strength to hold it on her own. "Just think, the sooner you get better, the sooner you'll be free of my _clutches_ ," she gave the heiress a light squeeze around her middle.

"Don't treat me like a child," Weiss made to toss her hair, but her earlier snap at Yang had taken a lot of energy, so the gesture left much to be desired. Besides, she _was_ hungry, vaguely. Not that she was going to admit that after her rude awakening. She took a spoonful of broth and blew on it for an unnecessarily long amount of time in order to get on Yang's nerves as much as possible.

Yang squinted in annoyance, but eventually slouched forward to make silly faces at one of the smaller children across the room that was staring at them.

Not long after that, a series of odd thumps sounded from above. Curtis and Cyan hadn't been back downstairs yet. Yang spared a quizzical glance at Weiss.

"Someone's out on the roof, maybe," an older woman with stitches on her brow informed the little boy in her lap.

Yang stopped making faces at once and sprang upright at the suggestion, nearly knocking into Weiss's spoon as she all but leaped off of the bed. Excitement rolled off of her in waves of heat, and she gripped the heiress's forearm a little too tightly, beaming a megawatt smile directly into ice blue eyes. "It's gotta be Ruby and Blake."

"Just go and see, _"_ Weiss balanced the bowl with her free hand as she leaned closer to Yang under the pressure of her grip, " _Ouch._ You don't have to break my arm."

"Right, sorry," Yang released Weiss and patted her arm, looking apologetic for all of one second before her smile returned full force and she left to head up the stairs.

* * *

 **A/N: Who could it beeeeee? ? I would write more but Fiercesomest is staring impatiently at me, waiting for me to post the chapte- oh actually she just went to bed. PARTY TIME- I kid. But yes, tune in next time!**

 **HUGS,**  
 **Defenestrator**


	19. Not The Best Time

**A/N: Shoutout to our guest reviewer who banked on us going with the worst possible option when it came to visitors, and was totally right.**

 **\- Fiercesomest**

* * *

Upstairs, Cyan perched on the edge of the bed in the cramped attic with the injured townsfolk who were able to navigate the stairs. The small window in the eaves was open, admitting the first sunshine they'd seen in days.

Not only that, but it admitted the first person they'd seen in days as well. A miner with a tough face and wide shoulders angled himself to get through the window with his coat and snow shoes. Snow showered off his coat and pants as he tumbled in, and everyone cheered. He laughed a second and greeted his neighbors before he sobered, most likely under the knowledge that this was everyone who'd made it. If anyone else survived the Grimm and the blizzard, they were tending to their wounds themselves under a mountain's worth of snow.

A couple of others followed, including Gregor, whose hair and blue headband brushed the low ceiling. The metal of the claymore cannon at his back gleamed in the shaft of light from the window.

"You're all a lot more alive than I figured you'd be," he greeted them with a broad smile.

One of the women made a comment about hibernating through the blizzard, and others relaxed into the brief chance for good cheer, nudging one another, poking fun. Just for a minute.

At the tail end of that minute, hurried footsteps tramped up the stairs, bringing a bright-eyed blonde huntress bursting through the doorway, stopping just short of tumbling over an elderly woman huddled by the door's dark wood frame. Yang stood tall, radiating cheerful energy, only for it to be crushed into utter disappointment the second she realized the new faces in the room were not, in fact, her missing sister or partner.

Gregor. The brawler's guard went up the instant she recognized the town's head miner, and her very first instinct was to go right back downstairs and hide Weiss. But she stilled herself, quickly glossing over the hardness in her eyes with a warm smile. Maybe if they could just start over, get off on the right foot... Perhaps they could work together in a time of crisis? Anyway, there was always something to be said for a bit of positivity.

"Well hey there! Good to see you guys made it."

Gregor looked up from the wounded wrapped in salvaged blankets and coats to Yang, who glowed with warmth. The attic wasn't large, and one step took him across it. He extended his hand to grip hers, "Someone said you'd been injured, and that you and your sister saved some kids. The Myers', maybe."

Yang couldn't stop the sadness that flickered across her features. She hadn't saved anyone. If anything, she'd brought this upon them all.

"It's all a bit hazy," she admitted with a drop of her eyes to the floor. "But you guys seem like you fared pretty well!" She spared a quick glance around at the handful of miners in the room - had they only sent their healthiest to search for survivors or was this all that was left? "Is anyone else with you?" Her eyes darted to the window, hoping for a flash of black or red.

The towering man had apparently given Yang all the attention he thought was due, though, and had already turned to speak with Cyan.

"We've got a couple injured back at the mine," he said, running his hand over his face, "We're closing off all the tunnels we can. Something really riled those Grimm."

"We need food," Cyan informed him. The sun showed how pale and worn the townsfolk in the attic had become. "Our medical supplies are running low."

"We brought supplies," Gregor jerked a thumb at the window, where a couple of his men were wrestling a few small crates and bags through the narrow window. They'd either been excavating houses or had managed to do a bit of salvaging before the storm hit. "Have you got a way of fixing the bites? Even the nicks won't quit bleeding."

"Maybe, if it's not too deep," Cyan perched close to another woman on the bed to ward off the chill from the open window. "You want to borrow Curt?"

"I want both of you."

A tension filled the space at that declaration. Cyan demurred, shaking her head, "I'm sorry. We have to take care of things here."

"Looks like your folks are healing," he shrugged to the others in the room. "My folks aren't."

Cyan held her silence.

Gregor glanced at Yang, as if remembering she was there. His brow creased, "Where's the rest of you? Anyone else make it?"

The brawler's eyes, which had drifted to the floor at the mention of something riling the Grimm, snapped back up to meet Gregor's,

Mentioning the incredibly weakened heiress just below to the man who had threatened her more times than Yang really felt like counting did _not_ seem like a fantastic idea. Diversionary tactics were in order.

Yang crossed her arms, catching a few strands of her hair as it shifted about from the light gust of wind that snaked through the room, "I woke up here, but I think Ruby and Blake are..." she stopped short of using the word missing, glancing once more out the window, "still out there." She tried not to look too hopeful as she added, "Have you seen them?"

"They got caught in the storm?" Gregor turned to frown at the stark white of the snow showing through the window.

A miner in a heavy maroon colored coat wiped his nose on the back of his leather glove, "Most likely holed up somewhere. Or frozen. Unless the Grimm got them first."

"Those two seem pretty resourceful," Cyan gentled the statement, watching Yang, "If anyone can figure out how to weather a storm, it's them."

"Alright, is that all the stuff?" Gregor hefted a crate under one arm while another of his men shut the window, "Let's get it down to the kitchen."

The kitchen. _Weiss._ Yang stamped down the bitter anxiety brought about by the miner's offhand comments and rushed to grab one of the crates herself, finding it filled with boxed and canned foods. It was slightly heavier than she'd anticipated, but nothing she couldn't handle.

"Here, let me give you guys a hand," the words tumbled out as she shouldered the crate on her less-bruised side and hurried to stand at the doorway before anyone could protest. Maybe if she led the way she could give Weiss some kind of warning... or something.

When Yang and the other miners tromped down the steep, narrow staircase to the kitchen, though, the cot on the far side of the room was quiet and still. Teammates' arrivals or no, as soon as Yang had left the room Weiss had pulled the blankets back up to sleep. She lay curled on her side, her white hair (what was visible past the covers) spilled across the pillow. The bowl of soup, still three-quarters full, stood on the crate next to the bed.

Yang arrived at the bottom of the stairs a full three steps ahead of the group of miners and made a beeline for the cot sporting that telltale spill of white under pretense of setting the crate atop the one already resting there. The bowl momentarily hindered her progress, but a woman sitting against the wall beside the crate removed it with a smile, earning a look of gratitude from the brawler.

That look quickly shifted to one worry and indecision as Yang finally relieved herself of the crate and turned to stare down at Weiss. What now? Seemingly thousands of possible actions raced through the brawler's mind, each more outlandish than the last, and the indecision was ultimately her undoing. Just as she had moved past the idea of burying Weiss in a pile of snow outside, to considering melodramatically lamenting the heiress's unfortunate passing while silently whispering to the other girl to play dead, she heard the miner's footsteps echo on the kitchen's hard wood flooring.

The brawler turned as warm greetings and cheers arose from those around them awake enough to realize they had visitors, more survivors, with supplies no less! She offered the men a wide smile of her own. Maybe she was overreacting. Maybe they would overlook Weiss in favor of helping their fellow townsfolk.

For a while, whether they would or wouldn't remained to be seen. But once they'd gotten the boxes settled, the men took a look around.

"Hey, boss," one wiped his hands on his pants in the dim light. He jerked his head towards the back of the room, "the Schnees are down an heiress."

Gregor followed the man's gesture to look at Yang. His gaze shifted to Weiss's telltale shock of white hair, "Well, would you look at that."

His boots were heavy on the tile as he headed that way, hands at his sides and a hard smile at the edge of his mouth.

Yang tensed, blanketing her reaction with a playful wink at the miner who first spoke, "Hah, no way, she's fine," she then huffed and took a seat on the edge of Weiss's cot in a show of fatigue, putting herself physically in Gregor's way. She lightly rested a steadying hand on the heiress's shoulder hiding just beneath the quilt's edge. "Just took some heavy hits out there is all."

"Yeah?" No one had taken spaces close to Weiss's cot, so Gregor had little trouble getting over to her. "Is she awake? I want to show her something."

Internally, Yang bristled at everything unspoken lingering in the hulking man's tone, but she simply put a finger to her lips and shook her head _no_ , keeping her voice low as she whispered, "Can it wait? We've still got supplies to pass out, right?"

"Wake her up," he growled. The men across the room had gone quiet to watch. The miner with the maroon coat put an arm across the doorframe, barring Cyan's entrance.

"I'd rather not," Yang's smile was calm, but her grip on Weiss's shoulder tightened. "She's been having trouble sleeping well."

"She was on watch that night, in the belltower," Gregor reached for his back pocket, "Wasn't she?"

Yang simply nodded, sparing a glance at the subtle movements of Gregor's arm, but otherwise keeping her eyes dutifully trained on his own, carefully watching the hardened grayish-black glare currently aimed right past her. "Yep. Rang the bell like crazy, warned the town and drew as much of the swam to herself as she could." They were guesses, shots in the dark, but she threw out whatever she could to help paint the heiress in the positive light she deserved.

"Let go," Weiss groaned, her speech thick with sleep. She shifted to get Yang to stop gripping her shoulder.

Gregor ignored Yang and moved to pull the blankets aside.

The brawler complied with the other girl's wish immediately, using her newly unoccupied hand to knock aside Gregor's reaching arm as she stood, placing herself directly in his immediate proximity. Her eyes flashed in unspoken warning, daring the man before her to try something. "Go back to sleep, Weiss."

"What?" The heiress rubbed her eyes on her sleeve, trying to sit up.

"Move," Gregor snarled at Yang, stepping into her space so he looked down at her. He clenched what looked like pictures in his hand. "You think I'm gonna hurt her? In a clinic?" He barked out a laugh, "Let me talk to her."

Yang crossed her arms and held her ground, saying nothing in response. She met his gaze evenly before eventually glancing back at Weiss, waiting until she caught her eyes to ask, "Do you want to talk to him?"

Weiss's gaze flickered from Yang to Gregor, and that was enough for him to start.

"I don't care if you rang the stupid bell. This happened on your watch, you worthless excuse for a huntress," he sneered, holding up the crumpled pictures in his fist. All other talk in the kitchen had gone dead silent. His voice low, grating through his teeth, "You didn't help anybody. You didn't save anybody. Wooden shutters weren't worth crap against those Grimm. And this- this one was all you."

The heiress lifted her chin a fraction of an inch in the half light of the open stove, "You're insane."

Gregor held his silence. Maybe something about the clinic, being surrounded by his recovering neighbors, made him steadier. His dark eyes were cold with hate. He dropped the pictures on the floor with a promise, "I'll see you later."

Yang couldn't help but glance curiously at the discarded pictures. There was one of Gregor with a baby, one of him with a little kid, and one of him grinning with... Yang's heart stopped.

Jack.

The edges of her vision bled crimson and something within the brawler finally broke down.

"Hey, wait." Yang reached a hand out to grab the miner's forearm as he turned to leave. "Can we talk for a minute?" She couldn't bring herself to look Gregor in the eye and focused instead on the pictures on the floor, desperately trying to imprint that happy, carefree image of Jack's smile over the mangled thing she'd found in the Grimm's lair. "Outside?"

Gregor's face twisted with grief. "Is this about your teammate," he kept his voice low, apparently aware of others' gazes on him now, "About her not being so bad? I got enough of that from Gale."

He pulled his arm free and called his men to get ready to leave.

"No," the brawler's hand hung in the air for a second before clenching into a fist and dropping to her side, "It's about your son."

Gregor stopped. He turned to Yang, searching her. "Fine. But hurry up. I've got folks waiting back at the mine."

Yang nodded, numbed by unrelenting guilt over the gravity of everything she had done - everything she _hadn't_ done. With one sorrowful parting glance at Weiss, the brawler's body seemed to act of its own accord, heading towards the clinic's entrance in a jerky stride fueled by a rush of adrenaline.

Before she even realized she'd started moving, she was outside, standing just inside the icy tunnel she'd carved out with Curits what felt like years ago. Yang turned to find Gregor standing behind her, looking impatient. Everything she could possibly say rushed into her head all at once, but Gregor didn't seem to be in the mood to wait around for her to sort her thoughts out, so she threw caution to the wind and started with the first thing that came to mind.

"I-... I'm so sorry we couldn't save your son." Her words were strained at first, but they started to flow the more she spoke, "If Blake and I had known he was being held by the pair of Liliac we were tracking..." She temporarily lost her train of thought, fists clenched in frustration. What could they have done? Blake's pistols weren't built for that kind of range, and her own long-range incendiary shots would have incinerated both the Grimm and their captor.

"You're telling me you followed Grimm you knew were carrying a kid?" Gregor asked, his tone dangerous.

Yang shook her head, bowing it to study the packed snow beneath her feet. "We didn't know what it was, it was too dark to see anything other than a dark blot in the sky." At least, it had been to dark for a humanto see. Had Blake known? Not that it mattered at this point. "By the time we caught up and found Jack in their lair, we were too late."

The brawler suddenly straightened her posture, fixing Gregor with burning amethyst that switched to crimson in the literal blink of an eye, "When I saw what the Grimm had done to him..." Red. Her memories were nothing but red, black, and blinding heat. She had tried to kill them all. If only it had worked.

"What?" Gregor frowned, uncomprehending. "Did you say 'lair'?"

The crimson bled from Yang's eyes and she blinked again, amethyst returning in an instant. "It might have been more like a den, or a cave or... I don't know. I couldn't actually see much other than their eyes," she grimaced, remembering the terror written on Blake's face when she had looked into the darkness. "They were endless. Blake is the only reason we escaped in one piece. They just kept coming, and the town..." The brawler squared her shoulders, "I brought this on everyone. This is no one's fault but mine."

Gregor continued to search her face, brow furrowed. Then, slowly, it dawned on him. His expression darkened, "You're what riled them."

Yang said nothing, letting Gregor's words hang in the air like the blade of a guillotine. She found no reason to deny what was true - rather, she accepted the accusation, sealing her fate with a quiet nod.

Gregor didn't say anything else. He buried his fist in Yang's jacket, hauling her one-handed back to the porch. He forced the door open-it banged against the inside wall and hung lopsided off its hinges as he dragged Yang through the hall, past his men, up the stairs.

" _Get out,"_ he roared, throwing her bodily at the window in the attic. The townsfolk there shrank away from both her and him. Gregor's face was red as he shouted his rage, hurling a large splintered dresser from beside the door at Yang.

The brawler put up no resistance other than covering the back of her head when she hit the window hard enough to crack the glass. There was only half a moment for her to wince when the sight of a dresser flying in her direction spurred her into moving. She turned away, letting the solid wood shatter across her back rather than chance deflecting it and having it careen into one of the nearby townsfolk.

Pain lanced through her bruises from both collisions, weakened spots in her defensive aura, direct feeds of energy to the flames that burned within her. Her teeth clenched with the effort it took to hold her semblance in check, and with sheer force of will she reigned herself in to the barest flick of fire from the edge of one eye. Heat poured off the brawler in waves, swirling through the silence of the room, seemingly misplaced, as her expression and posture lacked even the slightest traces of aggression when she turned back to face Gregor.

Seconds dragged like centuries as Yang scanned the faces of those around her one last time. She silently watched the townspeople's eyes dance nervously between herself and Gregor, watched the veins pop in the miner's neck as he heaved with barely contained fury, watched Cyan and Curtis arrive at the doorway and try to get past him, only for his miners to hold them back.

At long last, Yang let out a slow sigh. Resignation in her eyes, she looked to the clinic's resident physicians, wishing there was something more she could have done. Carefully removed her scarf, Yang moved and knelt down beside the nearest child, gently wrapping the bundle of orange fabric around the little girl's neck.

Without another word, she stood and turned to open the window, climbing not out into the snow, but up onto the rooftop. Slow and deliberate, her steps creaked across the shingles, then disappeared altogether.

Curtis listened, but no other sound of Yang came through the roof, "Gregor-"

"She did this," he turned, strong arming his way past his miners, hatred burning in his eyes. He'd cut his hand, throwing the dresser, but he didn't pay it any mind. "Half our people are dead 'cause of her. 'Cause of them."

* * *

Downstairs, Weiss put her head down for a second, waiting for the room to stop spinning. That crashing, splintering sound upstairs didn't bode well. She'd looked beside the cot, under the cot, everywhere she could see, but Myrtenaster was nowhere to be found.

"I don't suppose anyone's seen my sword?" she growled to hide the unsteadiness in her voice. Dust, she was dizzy.

The townsfolk just watched without responding. They didn't want to get involved, and with that cretin of a lead miner on the premises she couldn't really blame them.

Well, she could. They were all cowards. She swallowed hard to force down the bile that rose in her throat.

She sat up as best she could and set her jaw as she listened to the quick and heavy footsteps that preceded the miners' return to the kitchen.

Cyan came through the door first, attempting to bar Gregor's way, "Gregor, please."

He shouldered past her, though, fist already partway raised as he approached Weiss. The heiress brought her hands up and shut her eyes, taking several breaths to try and gather her aura for a glyph. Briefly, a circle of blue flickered around her.

Gregor's blow shattered the half-formed fragments. He caught a fistful of Weiss's already torn shirt and struck her again.

"Gregor! Gregor, stop," Curtis gritted his teeth, throwing himself on the bigger man's arm and hauling it back.

Still seeing stars, Weiss clung to Gregor's dirt begrimed wrist in a half conscious effort to get him to let go. He dragged her off the cot and hurled her to the floor.

"Take her out and shoot her," he ordered his men.

Grimly, they hauled the heiress up. She coughed and tried to get her feet under herself. Blood trickled down her face.

"You can't do this," Cyan told the men. Gregor threw Curtis off, sending him tumbling over the vacant cot.

"Who the hell says I can't? They brought these Grimm down on us. Gale's dead. Half our people are dead," his voice was a low growl of stone on stone. His fists clenched and the muscle stood out corded on his arms, "My _son_ is dead."

The townsfolk watched him. Cyan made a move toward Weiss, but one of the miners standing at the edge of the crowd barred her way with his arm. Gregor repeated to his men, "Take her outside."

* * *

 **A/N: See you next week, folks.**

 **\- Fiercesomest**

 **...Super secret second A/N: pssst, hey, Defenestrator here~ yes um, the lateness of this chapter is totally my fault.**

 **EXTRA APOLOGY HUGS FOR AN EXTRA LONG WAIT.**

 **Hhhhhuuuuggggssssssss**

 **\- D**


	20. Shots Fired

**A/N: Sorry again about this being so late at night! Of course right after we decided to post this on tuesdays my brilliant self decided to sign up for a tuesday thursday summer class that goes until 9:30pm aahahaHAh good job me.**

 **Oh and last chapter was a cliffhanger yikes, ahhh, ah man sorry about that guys. OK enough of my rambling, have fun with the chapter!**

 **HUGS,**

 **D**

* * *

The sky was bright blue overhead.

A pair of miners dragged Weiss up the stairs and out through the window to the roof, throwing her in a drift of partially packed snow. The fencer struggled to push herself up, but fell forward, exhausted. Snow clung to her thin undershirt and pants.

"I don't like this," one of the miners standing over her said. His voice sounded tinny, far away.

The heavy click of a round being chambered came, followed by the other man's voice "Just shut up."

Weiss shut her eyes and set her jaw, waiting for them to pull the trigger.

Had the heiress's eyes been open, she would have seen a towering inferno rise up behind the line of five miners, partially hidden by the slope of the roof - an inferno that sprinted forward and barreled straight into the back of the center gunman just as he fired, throwing his bullet's trajectory wide to the left, where it disappeared in a harmless burst of snow.

For a split second it was clear the inferno was actually a person. One gunman caught sight of crimson eyes flashing with unbridled rage. Another saw nothing but a blazing mane of yellow, but the third caught sight of their assailant's face the moment it whipped by - the brawler Gregor had just banished.

Her features, so often relaxed and smiling, had twisted into a fierce snarl as she used her charge's momentum to leap from the gunman's shoulders up into the air, landing with explosive force directly in the middle of their line of fire.

A mountain of snow erupted from her point of impact, obscuring everything in sight with an all encompassing wall of powdery white, rattling the clinic's window and flinging heavy chunks of ice in every direction.

Confused and frightened shouts filled the air. Hidden in the midst of the chaos, Yang scrambled to Weiss's side and hefted the fallen heiress into a bridal carry, grimacing when she felt herself begin to sink even further into the snow with their combined weight.

"I knew he would try something. I _knew it._ Weiss, I'm so sorry."

The brawler was beside herself, repeating those same three phrases seemingly at random as she pushed through the snow, nearly waist deep in the slush created by the unfortunate heat of her semblance. She was soaked, Weiss was soaked, wild gunshots tore through the air, one of which whizzed just past the brawler's ear.

Somehow, the cloud of snow held just long enough for Yang to reach the corner of the nearest house and haul the both of them up onto the blessedly solid surface of shingles.

Escape was in sight. Crouched and ready to sprint across the tops of the houses to any safe place she could find, Yang gripped Weiss a little closer to herself as she stepped forward - and fell straight through the roof.

They landed in the middle of a modest bedroom. The rug was rough with ice that had spilled in through a Grimm-chewed hole in the eaves. The sound of men shouting from the other rooftop barely reached them.

For a moment, everything was caught in a fragile peace. Powdery snow sparkled in the shaft of light from above.

Weiss coughed and shivered in Yang's arms. Blood dripped from her nose and her voice shook, "Let's not do that again."

Yang choked back a laugh that was more of a sob, gripping the smaller girl as if she were a lifeline. "Let's not."

Bits and pieces of roof clattered to the floor as she struggled to her feet without the use of her arms, but she paid it no mind, only half-listening for signs of the miner's voices growing closer. The path left behind by her semblance was going to be obvious either way. If Gregor's men really wanted to chase them down, she would deal with them accordingly. Either way, they needed to keep moving.

The brawler's steps were light and searching as she moved carefully through the darkened space. Even still, she banged her shin on a stray piece of furniture, probably a nightstand, then stepped on something sharp, biting back a choice curse as she dragged her foot along the carpet to dislodge whatever it was. She dearly wished for her boots, left by the side of the cot she and Weiss had been resting in less than thirty minutes ago.

She found the stairs before too long, and glanced warily down into the pitch darkness below. Her rage had largely passed, but a cursory check on the shivering girl in her arms sparked a healthy resurgence.

"Oh my god, Weiss, what did he do to you."

The heiress's aura, weakened as it was, seemed to be having trouble taking care of the cut that had opened up close to her hairline, both it and her nose gushing the very blood Weiss had been working so hard to recover. Licks of livid flame rose from Yang's hair and shoulders, but the brawler focused her anger, channeled it, forced the excess energy to flood through her aura in a desperate attempt to help Weiss patch herself up.

Armed with the gentle glow that surrounded them both, Yang crept down the stairs.

She halted abruptly at the bottom step.

Amethyst eyes widened in disbelief, reflecting thousands of glittering dots of red, a sea of watchful eyes hanging from the ceiling.

So much for Gale's lightning wiping them all out.

Weiss was in and out of consciousness. The glints of nightmare red blurred before her eyes. Even hurt this badly, her left hand slid to her hip, but her weapon wasn't there.

"Yang, put me down," she breathed. Maybe her teammate would stand a chance if she didn't have to look after her.

Footsteps thudded on the roof.

Time seemed to slow down as the pocket of surviving Grimm shifted, their fathomless appetites aroused by the hurt and the hatred of those nearby. Several of them stretched their wings and opened their mouths. Their fangs showed gold and patterned black in the light of Yang's aura.

The entire ceiling was packed, in this room and the hall beyond, it looked like. Even if Yang dropped Weiss to fight, in her current half-recovered, mostly-exhausted state, there was no way she could handle them all.

The sound of splintering of wood came from upstairs, distant, irrelevant now as the first of the Liliac uttered its deadly cry, as it prepared to leap for Yang and Weiss.

Something hit the landing behind and above them, and a different cry rang out- a familiar one. A red blur slammed Yang aside as time sped up. The dark room came alive with Grimm, their screeches filling the forsaken space as Ruby Rose whirled her massive scythe, shearing black flesh and bone.

For that handful of seconds, she was everywhere: standing over her sister, launching off the floor, the wall, off what used to be a dining room table, Crescent Rose cutting through the dark until the Liliac were reduced to sifts of ash.

"Oh no oh no oh no," Ruby dove to Yang and Weiss, frantically switching from trying to help and trying to give them space, words tumbling out of her a mile a minute, "you're bleeding, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to shove you into the wall so hard I just needed to get past, I'm so sorry, there are guys on the roof shooting at us and-"

"Shut up, Ruby," Weiss snapped as she tried and failed to untangle herself from Yang. If it was possible to shout, cry, and throw up all at the same time, she was going to do it. Her face was a mess of blood and snot and now tears, she made a clumsy swipe to clear her vision, "Shut up and—and-"

"Right, sorry," Ruby grabbed Yang's arm to help her up, "Blake's upstairs. We've gotta go."

Before she could really process what was happening, Yang was being half-dragged back up the stairs she'd just descended. Ruby was here - that much she was aware of - her little sister was fine and well. And _Blake. A_ smile flitted across the brawler's face at the familiar bark of Gambol Shroud's pistol rounds sounding from the rooftop above, only to be replaced by a frown when four quick shots interspersed with four separate shouts of pain, followed by four heavy thuds.

The subsequent shocked cries of _filthy Faunus, dirty animal,_ and a slew of similarly vulgar phrases that carried down the stairwell assured Yang that her partner hadn't become a murderer for their sakes, but the slurs made her blood boil all the same, and her face dropped right back into a snarl when they reached the top of the stairs.

The second story's floor looked like swiss cheese, riddled with bullets embedded where they had torn through countless shadow clones, never quick enough to hit their original target. They had tried to shoot Blake. They had tried to shoot her sister. They had tried to _execute_ Weiss.

Blake's head poked through the hole in the roof, Faunus eyes searching through the dark. She took in the sight of Yang and Weiss, and held her hands out, "Yang. Give her to me," to Ruby she reported, "One of the miners ran back to the clinic, I think he went to get-" A thunderous explosion cut off the tail end of her sentence. Shrapnel flew in every direction from the brand-new gaping hole in the roof. Blake looked at something over her shoulder, eyes wide. "Gregor."

Ruby's heart dropped as the bits of stone and shingle from the hole settled. She gripped Crescent Rose, leaping up to Blake's side in a flurry of red rose petals.

The chief miner stood braced on the steep pitch of the clinic's roof, not even thirty yards away. He rammed black powder and another fist-sized ball of metal into the barrel of his claymore cannon. His rough shaven jaw was set, the muscles in it working as he hefted the weapon to his shoulder for another shot. Behind him, his men were strapping on snowshoes.

"Get in the sled," Ruby's cloak swirled at her heels as she flailed one arm back towards the far edge of the roof.

A patchwork assemblage of wooden bedframe components lay tucked up behind the stone chimney. The contraption was fronted by a curved piece of metal that appeared to have been beaten into the role with a sledgehammer, which melded the result into a hack-job toboggan just big enough to fit the team.

Crescent Rose flashed in the sun, and the two halves of Gregor's cannon ball ripped through the shingles on either side of Blake and Weiss. Ruby shoved them towards the sled, "Go! Go, Yang, hurry!"

Yang pushed, and Blake pulled, and between the two of them they lifted Weiss free of the roof in seconds flat, Blake vanishing with Weiss an instant later, carting her injured teammate to their sled in a singular burst of speed. The brawler followed suit, but the height of her jump left much to be desired, powered as it was by drained limbs. She grabbed the splintered edge of the hole in the roof, hoisting herself up to stand beside her sister.

"Come on!" Blake shouted from the sled, crouching low over Weiss to shield her from any stray shots or shrapnel.

"Ruby," Yang grabbed her sister's forearm, trying to break her silver gaze from its laser-like focus on Gregor.

He was yelling to his men for another piece of ammunition. Ruby thanked her weapon-designing younger self for sticking with a reasonable caliber.

The other miners started shooting again- no one was jumping to charge the full team of huntresses-in-training- and Ruby turned and leapt into the sled, planting her feet and bracing Crescent Rose on the metal stop at the back, "Hang on tight, guys."

Weiss, still disoriented and bleeding, tried to sit up in Blake's arms, "What?"

Ruby pulled the trigger.

The kick from Crescent Rose's round sent the sled shooting across the snow.

The wind whipped through Ruby's hair and billowed her cloak out as she gripped Crescent Rose, prepared to fire again if they needed more speed. Rooftops raced past, stone icebergs in a sea of powdery white.

The trip up from the cabin had given Ruby ample time to regret not adding a way to steer, but as long as the sled kept to the roads, they wouldn't have a problem.

Unfortunately, the roads didn't run quite straight through town.

A particularly steep-pitched roof jutted from the snow like a tooth, directly in their path.

Ruby grabbed the edge of the toboggan, "Everyone lean left!"

Yang threw her weight to the side, but the sled barely budged, even when Blake joined in. The Faunus quickly scanned the area, and locked onto a building off to their side. "Yang!" She handed Weiss off to her partner, then stood, Gambol shroud shrinking into pistol form as she cranked her arm back and threw it as hard as she could. When the weapon caught on the edge of the building's low, blackened roof, she braced herself against the sled's side and _pulled._ The cracked and weathered shingles splintered and snapped into pieces, but she'd gained just enough leverage. The steep pitched roof flew by their side, a hair's breadth away.

"Thanks Blake!" Ruby yelled over the rush of wind as they shot through town.

"Ruby Rose you're going to get us all killed," Weiss fought Yang's grip, striving for a hold on the side of the sled, "Stop passing me back and forth- I'm not a piece of luggage."

Ruby kept an eye behind them, but the only sign from the miners far off up the street had been them shaking their fists and pointing their weapons. They hadn't giving chase. To the others, she called, "Looks like we're in the clear. What happened back there?"

Having finally relinquished her hold on Weiss, Yang's hands found their way to her face, and she seemed to slowly shut down.

"I told the truth..."

The words were barely a whisper, too quiet for human ears, but Blake frowned, throwing Ruby a look that begged her to wait until they weren't careening down the mountainside to start asking questions.

Weiss groaned from the floor of the sled, her head down almost in Yang's lap.

Ruby cringed at the other girls' responses, "...alright, team meeting back at the cabin then."

She turned to gaze back up at the snow-topped cliffs that rose over the town before a bump nearly threw her off balance. Refocusing, she set her jaw and watched for obstacles.


	21. Regrouping

Between the steep slope at the edge of town and Blake's strategic use of Gambol Shroud, getting the patchwork sled back to their home base didn't take long.

The cabin's roof jutted from the snow like a rock from a frozen lake. The crust of ice that had formed where melted snow had run down the shingles to meet the main body of white crunched as the toboggan came to a slow stop. Ruby craned her neck, checking their trail. There was no sign of pursuit, or any life from the snow-submerged town at all except a thin trail of smoke rising far off, presumably from the clinic's chimney. Overhead, the sky was a pale winter blue.

Yang sat in the bottom of the sled, still not looking at anyone. Weiss was shivering, clinging to the side of the sled and trying to wipe at the blood off her face with her sleeve.

Just looking at them, Ruby felt her heart drop. She and Blake should have gone for them sooner. They never should have left the clinic. They should have _done_ something. She forced those thoughts down as she spun Crescent Rose, storing her in compact form. She glanced at Blake, "Let's get them inside."

Blake nodded, quickly stowed her weapon, and moved to help her partner to her feet. She frowned when her offered hand was gently pushed aside. Yang stood and brushed herself off, unable to lift her eyes higher than Blake's boots as she shook her head.

 _I'm fine. Help Weiss._ The message was written into the expressive lines of the brawler's face, clear as day to Blake, even as she watched her partner struggle to form words. She was almost glad Yang couldn't bring herself to speak what would have been a bald-faced lie. She clearly wasn't fine. None of them were fine.

She tried to reach for Yang's shoulder, but the brawler had already turned to leave, brushing her knuckles against Ruby's as she passed by. Amber eyes watched Yang slowly cross the rooftop, going in completely the opposite direction of the gleaming staircase that led down through the collapsed roof of the porch to the large living room window. She and Ruby had carved the low, wide steps out of packed snow - a use she'd never imagined for Gambol Shroud.

A sneeze from Weiss brought Blake back to her senses, and her ears flattened when she looked down to see the heiress's valiant attempts to stop shivering and bleeding. Heat coiled in the Faunus's stomach, but she couldn't quite parse whether it was anger, sadness, or shame.

"Come on," Blake helped Weiss to her feet, holding her steady with one arm around her waist and trying to help wipe a bit of the blood from her scowling face with the other. "Can you walk?"

Weiss's knees buckled, and she clung to Blake's coat, "Just... give me a minute."

Meanwhile, Ruby trailed after her sister.

"Yang, c'mon, Blake and I made steps down to the house..." she paused at Yang's elbow, boots crunching on the ice and rough shingles. A cold touch of wind sweeping down through the valley caught at her cloak. Ruby balled her fists loosely, swallowing, "Weiss... looks pretty bad. So you've gotta come and tell us what happened, okay?"

Tangled waves of gold kicked up by the wind partially obscured Yang's face when she turned to look past Ruby, amethyst eyes waxing and waning red as she watched Blake supporting Weiss down the makeshift stairway. There was nothing she could say that would make things better, so she simply nodded, finally daring to look down at her little sister.

It was a mistake. Bright silver sharpened with worry pierced straight through Yang's attempt at a cool, levelheaded facade, stirring up every last dreg of anxiety she'd been pushing down since waking up alone with Weiss in the clinic. Her arms moved of their own accord, pulling Ruby into a crushing hug. "I'm _so glad_ you're okay."

"Hrgg, agh, Yang," Ruby squirmed in her sister's arms for a second. It was futile. She settled down, blowing her hair out of her face and hugging back. "Y'know, it's not very often _I_ get to come rescue _you,"_ her silver gaze dropped, "Though it might have been better if Blake and I were there in the first place. Sorry for getting stuck in a stupid blizzard."

Yang shook her head, mussing her sister's hair into a tiny mane nearly as wild as her own. "No, you're fine, we wouldn't have even needed saving if... If I hadn't..." Her voice petered out, and she gave Ruby one last squeeze before pulling away. "Come on, let's... go make a fire or something." Her teeth flashed in a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes, and her fingers tightened around Ruby's hand as she started towards the stairs.

Ruby let Yang lead the way to the stairs. It had been a long, long time since Yang had held Ruby's hand this way. Things must be bad. Well, they were obviously really, really bad, what with the Grimm attack and the snow, and now the shooting. Why would the miners shoot at Weiss and Yang? Sure, they didn't like Weiss's family but their town had just been attacked. She gripped Yang's hand a little harder and picked up her pace to walk right beside her as they descended the snow stairs.

"We'll get it figured out," she told Yang softly, nudging her with her shoulder. But deep down she had a feeling this wasn't going to be as easy as hunting Grimm.

* * *

Inside, Weiss had her head down on the rug by the hearth, taking advantage of the scant warmth emanating from the banked coals while Blake dug through her bag for some dry clothes.

Fortunately, the bag's contents were amazingly neat, and in no time at all she pulled out a perfectly folded set of pajamas, a heavy sweater, and a pair of thick wool socks. The embroidered white snowflake on each item of clothing seemed a bit excessive, but all that mattered was getting Weiss warm and dry, and unnecessary branding aside, the materials felt extremely high-quality. She pulled out a washcloth as well, wincing at its pristine white color. That wasn't going to last long.

Blake set the pile of clothes near the fireplace to warm as she moved to Weiss's side. She tried to focus on pouring warm water over the washcloth from the kettle they'd left sitting atop the banked coals, but her eyes kept flicking back to Weiss - to the blood. There was so much of it.

Logically, Blake knew that wounds to the face and head bled so freely they almost always appeared worse than they actually were, but the distinct iron scent hanging in the air was one she'd always associated with her days in the White Fang. Her hands shook slightly as she lifted Weiss's head and tried to wipe the memories away, working the washcloth in gentle circles on the sticky trails of red staining her teammate's face until she revealed a freshly sealed cut just below her hairline.

Weiss's aura had to be in terrible shape for a cut this small to have bled for so long.

"Sorry about your washcloth," Blake said through a rueful smile as she poured a bit more water onto the permanently reddened washcloth and went in for round two.

The sound of crunching footsteps brought one of Blake's Faunus ears swiveling towards the window, her gaze following suit with a brief flick to the snowy stairway before she refocused on Weiss. The other girl hadn't replied, opened her eyes, or moved so much as an inch, even when Blake made a light pass of the washcloth beneath her bloodied nose. The heiress could have easily passed for dead if it wasn't for her constant shivering.

Blake's ears flattened as she brushed a bit of hair from Weiss's neck, discreetly checking for a pulse while her fingers just so happened to be in the area. "Weiss, are you still with me? Do you need help changing?"

The heiress started, as if waking from sleep. She took a breath and coughed, her teeth chattering, "N-no, get the fire going."

Cakes of snow scattered on the floor as Ruby stomped her boots on the way in. The weak light from the front window lit most of the main room, but the doorway to the kitchen was dark. It was like living being in an ice cave, but slightly warmer.

One look at Blake and Weiss on the rug and she jumped into action, abandoning her combat boots and scurrying over to get her partner out of her wet clothes, "Yikes, your lips are kind of blue, Weiss."

"S-shut up," Weiss slurred, eyes bleary as she let Ruby help prop her upright so it would be easier to pull her shirt off over her head.

Blake averted her eyes to give Weiss some sense of privacy, looking instead towards the cabin's makeshift entrance to find Yang standing quiet and still, gripping the window frame as her eyes bored holes into the floor, mostly hidden by windswept tangles of gold.

"Yang-" Blake faltered when her voice pulled the brawler's crimson gaze to her own. Her partner's usual amethyst returned one blink later, but Blake's Faunus ears gave a nervous twitch when she found she couldn't read Yang's expression. "...Give me a hand," she motioned to the fireplace with a tilt of her head. The brawler hesitated, stealing a glance out the window, and for a fleeting moment Blake worried she might bolt.

Fortunately her fears were unfounded, and Yang released the window frame, wordlessly skirting around Ruby and Weiss as she crossed the room to sit beside Blake in front of the dire. The banked coals seemed to heat up in the brawler's presence, and when Blake handed her the pieces of one of the logs Ruby had chopped up for tinder, they burst into flame almost immediately.

Blake handed over pieces of wood whenever Yang's open hand extended towards her, amber eyes watching with mild fascination as the brawler went to work setting up a beautiful pile of firewood - a skill that seemed completely unnecessary for someone who could produce flames more-or-less at will. The fire was already at full roar by the time she finished, but Yang kept quiet, eyes fixed on an invisible point somewhere in the flame's center.

The uncharacteristic silence ate away at Blake's composure, spurring her to place a hand on Yang's knee. "It's good to have you back."

She wasn't sure what she expected - a smile, a frown, maybe even anger - but getting no response at all was unnerving. She was about to try again when Yang finally moved, placing her hand atop Blake's and squeezing for all she was worth. It was almost painful, but Blake smiled anyway, trying to squeeze back as best she could.

Squinting her eyes shut just in case, Blake turned her head just enough to address Ruby and Weiss. "Is it safe to turn around?"

"Yeah, we're good," Ruby twitched half of her cloak over her partner's shoulders. "Are we good?"

Weiss sat with her knees drawn up and her head down, her damp and dirty clothes replaced with layered thermal shirts and pants. She tugged at her collar, but didn't lift her head.

"Maybe we'll keep the teem meeting short," Ruby glanced at Yang, unsure of exactly what to expect, "So, um..."

Yang stood abruptly, announcing, "I should change too," before making a beeline for the stairs that led to the loft.

"Yang, wait," Blake stood as well, but the brawler had already disappeared up into the darkness that blanketed the cabin's second story. She was running.

Blake set her jaw. The Faunus was an expert at running, and it had never gotten her anywhere. She refused to let her partner do the same. With a deep breath, she stalked towards the stairs as well, pausing when she passed Ruby and Weiss. "I'm going to see if she needs a hand."

Ruby watched her go, and looked down at Weiss. A bruise had started to color across the side of her face. Something burned in Ruby's chest- if it had been a Grimm that had hurt Weiss (and it hadn't been incinerated by a blast of lightning), she would have taken Crescent Rose out and torn it apart. Same for if something had hurt Yang or Blake. But _people_ had done this. She reached for the heiress's bag, and slid it over so she could dig for the first aid kit. "I... I'll help clean that up, okay? Just hold still."

Weiss let Ruby dab at the cut with disinfectant. Being under fire in combat was different from being nearly executed by the people you were trying to help. She couldn't get her thoughts straight enough to express that feeling, or even complain about Ruby's sub-par field medicine skills- at least not until she tried to bandage the cut. "Don't."

"Sorry," Ruby stopped trying to wrap the bandage around her head. It had been too much in the first place, but it was the only way she could figure out to get it to stay.

Weiss seemed like she might snap at her again, but she just sighed and turned her face away.

Dread pooled in Ruby's stomach. What exactly had happened? And more importantly, what were they going to do about it? She looked up towards the loft where the weak sun and flickering light of the fire didn't quite reach.

* * *

The darkness of the loft meant nothing to Blake's night vision, but her partner was nowhere in sight. With no visible holes in the walls or ceiling, there was really only one place left to look. She crossed to the bathroom door and tried the handle - locked, just as she suspected.

As if that would stop her. Blake pulled a small metal pick from her belt and knelt down to work. It had been ages since she'd had to pick a lock, but for better or worse she found the less than noble skill still came easily. With her Faunus ear pressed to the door to listen to the mechanism's springs, it was only a matter of time before she heard the telltale _click_ of success.

Silent as a shadow, Blake pushed the door open, slipped inside, and locked it behind her. Where the cabin's living room at least had the light from the fire and window, the bathroom was pitch dark, save for a faint glow which drew her towards the shower. She found Yang sitting behind the the frosted shower door, slumped with her back against the tile, knees up and head resting in her hands. The brawler's entire form smoldered like a low-burning pile of coals.

This time, Blake didn't bother with stealth when she slid open the shower door. If the low rattle of glass surprised Yang, she gave no indication other than curling her fingers and emitting a low groan.

"Of course you would know how to pick a lock."

The smirk on Blake's face fell the instant her partner finally lifted her head. Tear-streaked didn't even begin to describe the absolute wreck of a blonde looking up at her - but she _sounded_ fine. Blake tried not to think about just how much practice the brawler had to have with hiding sorrow to keep her voice so disarmingly level while her eyes flooded like broken dams.

Mouth set in a grim line, Blake sat herself down next to Yang. She didn't know what to say, but physicality always had a way of calming Yang down, so she scooted close and pressed herself to her partner's side, offering a solid presence to lean on.

They sat in silence until Yang hid her face once more. "I can't let Ruby see me like this."

There wasn't much Blake could say to that, so she let silence reign a little longer before finally opting to strike at the heart of the matter. "Yang, what happened up there at the clinic?"

A few seconds passed before Yang lifted her head once more, just enough to glance sideways at Blake. "I told Gregor... about the den we found."

Blake let out a quiet sigh. She'd suspected as much, but that didn't make it any better to hear. Bracing herself for whatever may come, she made a show of tilting her head and looking confused. "What about it?"

Heat flared through the shower as Yang forcefully pushed herself to her feet and rounded on her partner. "What do you _think,_ " she snapped, turning to face her burning reflection in the sliding glass door. Her hands balled into fists, shaking with the effort it took to keep her voice level. "I told him exactly what happened. I told him how i couldn't save one single kid, his _son_ , from a couple of Grimm. I told him how _angry_ it made me. How I lost it. How I set the Grimm off. How I _murdered_ over half the town. I told him the _truth._ " her fist sailed through the frosted glass, right through the reflection of those bright Grimm-red eyes staring back at her.

Blake flinched, brushing shards of glass from her hair as she got to her feet. "Yang..."

"They threw Weiss in front of a _firing squad_ because of what I did. They tried to shoot you and Ruby."

"Yang-"

"Blake, you were there!" Yang rounded on her partner once more, teeth flashing in a snarl, "You know - you _saw_ what I did. I'm a liability to the team. I'm a danger to those around me."

"Yang," Blake slipped her arms around the raging brawler and pulled her into a fierce hug, frowning when she felt Yang's entire body tense up and refuse to hug back. A small voice in the back of her head told her bring this close to someone so volatile was dangerous, but she discarded the notion as quickly as it came. This was her partner - Yang would never hurt her. She took a deep breath, trying to gather enough calm for the both of them. "What do you think would have happened if we hadn't set them off?"

Yang shook her head at Blake's use of _we._ "That's easy," she growled, "Nothing. Everyone would still be alive..."

"I'm not so sure," Blake ventured, "I was thinking... everyone would be dead."

The Faunus blinked when she was pushed back, looking up to see Yang staring down at her with every bit of incredulity she possessed.

"...What?"

Her eyes had cooled back to amethyst - a good sign. Blake dipped her head, eyes drifting shut as she called upon old survival lessons she hadn't bothered to dwell on since coming to live within the walls of Vale.

Packs of Grimm were always more dangerous than lone wanderers - but a group large enough to fill an entire mountainside? It was no wonder the town had called for help. If anything, it was a wonder they'd survived as long as they had.

"When you live outside the safety of the kingdoms... it isn't uncommon for entire groups of people, entire cities, to disappear overnight." Blake cracked an eye open to make sure Yang was listening, "You know as well as I do, the Grimm aren't just mindless beasts. They learn, adapt... plan. Every time you fail to kill a Grimm, you teach it to survive."

"But, we killed each one we came across," Yang gripped Blake's shoulders, furrowing her brows when the Faunus shook her head.

"The town didn't."

Yang fell silent, dropping her gaze to the floor.

Taking the opening, Blake pressed on, "Those lone attacks on the town? Scouts. Each one Gale's lightning failed to kill learned something. They couldn't get through the mines, so they found the next closest opening out in the mountainside. Then, they still couldn't get to the town because of the lightning. The lightning which was called by the bell tower. And the bell tower was manned by-"

"Jack," Yang gripped Blake's shoulders, eyes flashing, "Are you telling me those things _specifically_ targeted him?"

"Take out the crux of the warning system, take out the resulting lightning," Blake scowled, the signs should have been obvious, but somehow she had missed them. They all had. "We've already seen the Liliac using cloud cover to hide. I'd bet Gambol Shroud they were gearing up for a surprise attack. Maybe even that night. The clouds were so thick, no one would have seen them coming..."

Her words hung in the air, thick and stifling, and for a long time neither of them spoke. Blake kept her eyes locked on Yang's, watching a series of emotions flick past in rapid succession, too quick for her to really get a solid read. Slowly, one expression overtook the others. Despair.

"That doesn't change anything," Yang's arms slid away from Blake's shoulders to hang limp at her sides, "I... I still got a ton of people killed."

"No... nothing can change that..." Blake reached to grasp the brawler's hands in her own, pulling the taller girl down so that their foreheads touched, "But you're still my partner. Ruby is still your sister. Weiss is still... prickly."

The quip from left field made Yang snort, finally wrangling a small smile to her face. "Actually, she can be very cuddly..." The smile disappeared. "We almost lost her... because I couldn't control my temper."

"Yang, stop, please," Blake gripped harder, trying to squeeze the self-destructive vitriol from her partner, "Maybe we can't change what happened, or how it happened, but we can try to keep it from happening again."

"...Again?"

"If my theory is right, the Liliac are going to wait until there's more cloud cover. If I'm wrong, who knows when the next attack might be. The only thing we know for sure is that they are creatures of Grimm, and they _will_ be back."

Darkness pressed in on the partnership as Yang's glow died away entirely, lost to exhaustion. Even Blake's eyes had little to no light to make use of, but in the stillness she could hear the brawler's breathing relax - feel the pulse beneath her fingers slowing back to a normal pace.

"We need to prepare," Blake trailed her hands up Yang's arms to touch her face - it was wet, "As a team." A deep shuddering sigh was her only response. "Come on, let's go back downstairs," she urged, "We'll figure something out." It was slow, and incredibly slight, but Blake's distinctly felt the brawler nod. That was her only warning before strong arms crushed her into a backbreaking hug. Hot tears streamed down her neck where Yang had buried her face, fresh waves coming with each heave of the brawler's slumped shoulders.

Blake blinked a few times, ignoring the lingering wetness on her lashes as she squeezed back for all she was worth. She inclined her head to whisper in Yang's ear, "Whenever you're ready."

* * *

 **A/N: Through a series of forgetful events, this chapter has been sitting in the doc manager since Monday, waiting for attention. SO let's call it a RWBY Friday, and we'll see you next Tuesday (ish) for the continuing saga of how-much-worse-can-this-possibly-get.**

 **At least the team's together now, though, right? Right.**

 **\- Fiercesomest**


	22. No Easy Way

Ruby had tensed at the sound of shattering glass from upstairs. It was muffled, probably from the bathroom as opposed to the little window above the beds. She craned her neck to try to see but the loft was just as dark as before.

 _I hope you're doing okay, Blake,_ Ruby took a deep breath, turning her focus to her partner.

Sometimes she forgot how small Weiss was. With her heeled boots and perfect posture, the white-haired girl always seemed a lot taller than Ruby. Now though, sitting curled with her knees drawn up, tucked under the edge of her cloak in the firelight, she was tiny. Fragile, like she might break.

Ruby didn't have anything to say. She tugged the edge of the heiress's pant leg gently, maintaining the light contact with her shoulder so Weiss would know she was there.

The snow-damp logs on the fire crackled and hissed. Ruby tried to listen to that instead of the muted voices upstairs. After a time, those gave way to a long, aching silence.

Yang had been unconscious when Ruby and Blake had gone for supplies. Injured, like Weiss. Well, maybe not quite as bad as Weiss. Ruby gripped the cuff of her partner's pant leg a little harder, swearing to never leave her teammates like that again.

"Hey, Weiss?" she asked, "You want to lie down? It looks like they might be a while."

Weiss tightened her arms around her knees.

"Is your shoulder alright?" Ruby swallowed to get rid of the lump in her throat, "It was pretty messed up when we found you."

The fire crackled, and the silence upstairs stretched on for another minute.

At last, Weiss murmured, "It doesn't hurt."

"How about your head? I can get you something to drink, if you want."

"No, thank you."

"You sure?" Ruby pressed. Something in her yearned for Weiss to snap at her, to call her an idiot for leaving and getting caught in the storm.

Weiss didn't respond though. Didn't lift her head or turn to look at Ruby at all.

"Just tell me if you need something, or if you want to move to the couch or anything," Ruby nudged her again, gentle, heart sinking at her inability to help, "You can yell at me, even, if you feel like it. Okay?"

The exhausted heiress gave no sign that she'd heard her partner's words.

Ruby's gaze slid to the floor. She turned back to the fire, waiting for Blake to come back with Yang.

Eventually, the stillness of the loft gave way to a series of quiet sounds - the low click of a door unlocking, the muffled rasping of a zipper, the rustling of cloth, and finally two distinct sets of footsteps coming down the stairs.

The firelight washed over Blake first, the reds and oranges of the flames highlighting the redness still lingering around her eyes. She glanced back and gently pulled her partner into the light as well. Yang had changed back into her full combat attire, but looked far more ready for a long nap than a fight. Her fingers locked with Blake's as the Faunus led her to stand before their teammates.

Ruby took a slow breath, greeting them softly. "Hey Blake. Hey Yang."

"Hey sis," Yang replied to the floor.

Blake nodded and sat down, pulling Yang down to sit beside her. Amber eyes, wide in the relative darkness, darted to Weiss before fixing on Ruby. Unsure if the heiress was asleep, Blake kept her voice low. "...How is she?"

99% of the time, unhappy/injured Weiss equaled vocal Weiss. Ruby looked down at her unresponsive partner. She was still leaned a little against Ruby, and her breathing was soft and even, but she didn't stir. Ruby's stomach twisted with worry and she mumbled to Blake, "She's pretty bad, I think. What happened?"

Blake's eyes drifted to Yang, who's expression had gone sour.

"Gregor," the brawler spat the man's name like a curse, "I made him angry, so he threw me out and took it out on Weiss instead." Part of her had wanted to believe the head miner would keep his word about not harming Weiss while she was recovering in the clinic, but he'd shown his true colors all too quickly. Yang lifted her head, tentatively reaching out to Weiss, but she stopped halfway, letting her hand drop. "I never should have left her alone with him."

Gregor was angry? Weiss got left alone? Ruby tightened her fists as she tried to put the pieces together. The whole town was hurt, why would anybody try to hurt anybody more? Just thinking about her partner getting hurt… something fierce expanded in Ruby's chest and she glanced at Weiss, who had been completely out of commission before the blizzard, "But she didn't even—she couldn't have even fought back, could she?"

At that, Weiss roused herself. Her eyes were bleary with sleep and hurt. "Where's Myrtenaster?"

That's right—Weiss hadn't had her sword. Ruby's throat tightened and she looked to Blake.

Blake cringed. She had been so focused on bringing survivors to the clinic, going back for the heiress's prized weapon hadn't crossed her mind, and then the blizzard... If no one else had found the sword where they'd left it, then... "It's probably still in the bell tower."

For a few heart-stopping seconds, Ruby was sure that Weiss was going to cry. The seconds passed, however, and the heiress put her head back down on her crossed arms and was silent again.

"That's... an important thing we should take care of," Ruby swallowed, still trying to make sense of how the townsfolk could attack anyone. Sure, they didn't like Weiss's family, but after an attack? Right after an attack? She turned to Yang, "Are they going to come after us, do you think? I mean, we're kind of stuck here till..."

Chuck had never come. Of course, the storm had been terrible, so he could have been waiting it out. Maybe he'd show up this afternoon, even! Though, given the snow, landing might be a trick. Still, Ruby clung to this shred of hope. "Did anyone ever try that emergency radio?"

Blake shrugged. She'd heard a couple of the miners mention the town's emergency radio tower in passing while she'd been scouring the ruins for survivors, but it had never been anything beyond them wondering aloud whether it was still standing in the wake of the attack.

"Do you think we could use it to contact Cyan and Curtis?" Yang cut in. She had perked at the possibility of checking in on the two who had taken such good care of her and Weiss while they were at their weakest. "Maybe we could still help them out somehow. They didn't seem to be huge fans of the way the miners were acting and-" a thought struck her then, and the hope drained from the brawler's eyes as she hung her head.

"Then again, I never told them about..." Yang trailed off, dread threatening to swallow her resolve as the deep breath she'd tried to steel herself with only weighed her down, pinning her eyes to the floor. A gentle squeeze from Blake's hand pulled her from the brink of shutting back down, and she seized the moment, locking eyes with her sister and throwing the words out before they could slip away again, "-about how I triggered the swarm."

A beat of silence.

Something that had been tickling the back of Ruby's mind came to her again. That night, the night of the attack, when she and Yang had holed up in that house, protecting the three kids.

 _Yang slowly turned to peer out the small gap at the Liliac swarming outside, their impossible numbers briefly illuminated by two quick flashes of lightning. "...I did this."_

Ruby searched her sister's face. Her question came out more like a statement. "It was an accident."

Ruby's words stripped Yang of her own, leaving her unable to do anything other than shake her head, the movement slowed by the crushing weight of the guilt she bore.

Bloodlust wasn't an accident.

Acting on it however, had been a mistake. A terrible, impossible mistake with a cost too great to tally. She had wanted so badly to kill each and every one of those Grimm, but the simple truth was, she hadn't been able to - and everyone else had paid the price.

Unable to say as much, she simply held Ruby's gaze, dreading the moment those silver eyes might darken in distrust.

"We found Jack in the Liliac's den," Blake quietly supplied from the sidelines.

Slick, oily dread pooled in Ruby's stomach. That night- the night of the attack- Yang and Blake had been on the lookout for Grimm. Somehow, they'd found the den. They'd found Jack. Ruby swallowed, guessing what came next. Still, she prompted softly, "... and then?"

Through their linked fingers, Blake could feel Yang's entire body tensed to the point of snapping, but somehow the brawler's voice still maintained an eerily even timbre when she responded quietly, "I got angry."

Ruby let her sister's words sink in. Her vision blurred with tears. She'd dropped her knees so she was cross-legged, but she wanted to stand. She wanted to bolt up to her feet and... and... she wasn't even sure. But Weiss was still leaning on her shoulder, protected beneath the edge of her cloak, so moving wasn't really an option.

"Yang, come here," Ruby choked the words out through gritted teeth. She pointed at the rug in front of herself, "Right here."

Blake flinched visibly at the younger girl's tone, but when she felt Yang release her hand, she quickly shuffled back and out of the way as the brawler immediately shifted in one smooth motion to kneel right where Ruby had pointed. Her ears flattened at the look of defeat in her partner's eyes, but she dared not interfere, mindful of the crackling tension in the air.

She wouldn't have had a chance to anyway. As soon as Yang knelt, Ruby pulled her down and wrapped her arms around her neck, burying her face in her hair and gripping as hard as she could at the awkward sitting-kneeling angle.

Ruby had gotten these kinds of hugs before, from Yang, or from Summer before she was gone. The kind that said 'I'm here no matter what', even when you didn't have the words. So Ruby gave Yang one now, tears spilling into her sister's golden hair as she sat with her, holding on for all she was worth.

Yang broke for the second time that night, locking an arm around her little sister like a vice as she dissolved back down into the seemingly endless tears she thought she'd gotten out of her system with Blake. Her other arm reached out to hold Weiss in place, keeping her from slipping from Ruby's shoulder. When she felt Blake gently drape her arms around the three of them, she only cried harder.

Ruby wasn't sure how long they stayed like that, just clinging to Yang, to one another. She didn't think about what Yang confession would mean when they got back to Beacon, or of what it meant to the town here and now. She just kept her eyes shut and her face buried in Yang's shoulder.

Eventually, Weiss squirmed in her teammates' embrace. She whined, half-awake, "Can we please cry somewhere that's not on top of me?"

Yang started, releasing Weiss to quickly swipe an arm across her eyes, "Hey, you're awake!"

Blake was the first to move, letting her arms slip from around the group to instead gently pull Weiss from the tangle of limbs. Bright amber eyes peered down at the heiress, "How are you feeling?"

Shivering and miserable, Weiss tried to shrug Blake's hands off, "Do you have to ask?"

Ruby pulled back from Yang, still sniffling. There wasn't going to be an easy fix for what had happened- there probably wouldn't be a fix at all- but searching for a way to make it better would have to wait. She glanced at her partner, and then at the mess of blankets and pillows on the couch behind them. "Yeah, okay. Let's get the couch set up for Weiss. Think we can move it a little closer to the fire?"

"Yeah, 'course, I got it," with one last swipe across her eyes to clear her vision, Yang vaulted over the couch, thankful the heavy oak piece of furniture was just as sturdy as it looked. Once Ruby and Blake shuffled Weiss out of the way, she pushed it forward in one great shove, wincing at the sudden earsplitting screech of wood against wood that only stopped once she stopped, leaving the couch a mere two feet from the hearth. "Ouch. Ow, should have lifted instead..."

Ruby flipped the tangle of blankets up so they draped over the back cushions and unrolled Weiss's sleeping gear in their place. "There you go. Tell us if you get too warm or something."

"That's not going to be an issue," Weiss mumbled, clinging to Blake for support. She shook with cold as her aura continued to try to re-establish itself.

Blake led the heiress to the couch and helped her lie down in her thermal sleeping bag. Once she'd shifted into what was hopefully a comfortable position, Blake pushed her hair aside and zipped the bag shut. Yang appeared at her side a moment later, greeting Blake with a soft smile before gazing down at Weiss with an unreadable expression.

The heiress hadn't said word one about... anything. Anything other than being cold and tired, anyway. Yang frowned at the sleeping bag. She had been trying to keep this girl warm for the past three days - personal experience warned that even set right next to the fire, one layer simply would not cut it.

With a low hum of dissatisfaction, the brawler set to work, pulling each and every one of the tangled blankets from the back of the couch and tucking them tightly around Weiss one by one in fluid, practiced movements. In no time flat she had wrapped the shivering girl in a thick cocoon of warmth, stopping just short of laying a kiss to her forehead as she remembered this was Weiss she was tucking in to sleep, not Ruby.

Quickly shaking her head, Yang stepped back to admire her work. "That should do it."

"I can't move my arms," Weiss complained, straining weakly against the layers.

"That's how you know it's a good blanket barrier," Yang reassured the squirming girl, unable to keep from smiling at Weiss's resemblance to an angry caterpillar.

Blake paused mid-eye roll when her Faunus ears twitched at the sound of a low growl coming from something other than Weiss. Amber eyes narrowed, zeroing in on Yang's stomach. "When was the last time you two ate?"

"Er..." the brawler fumbled for a response, smile faltering as she tried not to think about the clinic, "...today?"

After a brief staredown, Blake gave Yang a gentle shove towards the kitchen, nearly sending her straight into Ruby. "Then, go make us all something delicious," she commanded, her half-smile removing any bite her words may have held otherwise.

 _Go take your mind off of things._ Was the message Yang received, and she managed to smile once more before slipping quietly into the kitchen, thankful for a solid task to focus on.

Just as the brawler left their line of sight, a bright _crack_ from the fireplace sent an ember flying, landing inches from the edge of the couch.

Blake stamped it out immediately, slowly lifting her gaze to Ruby once she was sure it had been snuffed out. "... At least one of us should probably stay to make sure Weiss doesn't catch on fire."

Weiss huffed and settled down, growling incoherent threats after Yang.

"On it," Ruby gave Blake a thumbs-up, her heart still heavy. She went to the couch and set about making the layers of thick crocheted wool a little less constricting for her partner. To Blake, she added, "Hey, tell Yang there's more macaroni and cheese in the cupboard."

"Okay," Blake nodded, brushing a hand across Ruby's back as she passed by her young team leader. She paused at the kitchen's entrance, looking over her shoulder, "I won't tell her that's all you've had for three days straight though."

"What was that?" Yang's voice carried from the depths of the kitchen.

"Nothing," Blake called back to her partner, throwing Ruby a conspiratorial wink before slipping into the kitchen and out of sight.

"Macaroni and cheese is _good_ ," Ruby pouted, taking the edge of her cloak and twitching it up over her arm to keep it out of range of the fire. Pasta also kept well, which might become important if they were trapped here for a significant length of time. Slowly, she stopped adjusting the blankets and just sat on the floor near the armrest. "Is that better?"

The heiress gave a drowsy affirmative. She had her face turned away so all Ruby could see was her ear, the curve of her neck, her tumble of ivory hair. She looked pale to Ruby, but then again Weiss's skin was fair to begin with.

She had lost so much blood. Ruby couldn't get the mental image of her partner lying gently curled on her side just like she was now, but in a pool of crimson in the icy darkness. Before her thoughts could go far down that road, Ruby reached under the blankets in search of Weiss's hand. All she found was the slick synthetic fabric that made up the outer shell of her sleeping bag.

Weiss shifted to look blearily over her shoulder. She groaned, shutting her eyes again. "Ruby. I'm trying to rest."

"I know, just," Ruby remained kneeling at the edge of the couch. In the firelight she could make out the bruise across Weiss's temple. "Can I hold your hand or something? Please?"

Correctly interpreting this as her only means of getting any peace and quiet, Weiss sighed and extracted one arm from her sleeping bag. Ruby took her hand. It was cold, but not as cold as before. She fixed the blankets so Weiss could keep warm and sat with her head down, both arms under the covers.

"I'm sorry I left you in the bell tower," Ruby murmured into the couch cushions.

Weiss let Ruby grip her hand like it was a lifeline. She gripped back a little, "I should've been able to handle it."

"Our scrolls weren't working," Ruby lifted her head, scooting closer, "We shouldn't have split up."

Weiss's strength waned. She scolded softly, "You're such a child."

It was good to hear Weiss criticizing again, so Ruby didn't mind, really. When she whined, the edge of her mouth quirked up, "You always say that."

"Because you are," the heiress snuggled down under the blankets. "Now let me sleep."

Ruby rested her head on the edge of the couch again, content for a while to hang onto Weiss's hand and know she was okay.

Twice now, being separated from her teammates had turned out badly. First Weiss got hurt, and now…

The pale light from the window had dimmed, presumably because the sun was dipping below the valley rim. Nightfall wasn't far off. Crescent Rose was warm and heavy at Ruby's back, shielding her from the heat of the fireplace and the thoughts of what was to come.

* * *

 **A/N: Someday it will be RWBY Tuesday again. For now, Friday will just have to do.**

 **-Fiercesomest**


	23. Lifesigns

**A/N: Sssoooo, I'm taking the blame for this chapter being so late because homework and work and school projects and the usual lame excuses and I'm so sorry guys, but hey ONLY ONE WEEK LEFT OF CLASS WOOHOO!**

 **Once class is done I'll be able to just come straight home from work again (I mean, after the gym of course) ah man that's gonna be so niceeee. And so yeah, then these chapters will totally be back to their regularly scheduled RWBY Tuesday slot. Goodness.**

 **Until then, thanks so much for your patience x.x**

 **HUGS,  
Defenestrator**

* * *

The pair was fast asleep by the time Blake emerged from the kitchen. She stopped short, Yang nearly crashing into her with a glass dish of burning hot macaroni casserole straight from the oven.

"Blake, what-" Yang stopped as well at the sight of Ruby and Weiss resting with their foreheads pressed together. There was a peaceful air about the two, something calming, and the brawler who hadn't said as much as a word during her entire time in the kitchen finally felt herself crack a small smile. She whispered to Blake, "If they think looking cute is going to save them from eating dinner..."

As happy as Blake was to see her partner in better spirits, she blocked Yang's attempt to step forward with an arm across her chest, whispering back, "We should let them sleep." Seeing Yang's incredulous lifted brow, she continued, "The body knows what it wants." She removed her arm to rest her hand on Yang's shoulder. "They'll wake up if they get hungry."

Yang didn't look entirely convinced, but she did look tired, and the prospect of sleep was sounding better and better with each waking moment. Still, eating was important, necessary for keeping up strength, but when she opened her mouth to say as much, all that came out was an enormous yawn.

Too tired to be embarrassed, Yang simply spaced out for a solid minute, making a show of thinking hard when actually she had already reached her decision. Finally, her eyes traveled to meet Blake's. "...Okay, you can wipe that smug look off your face, Belladonna," the brawler muttered through a sleepy smile, tossing in an exaggerated sigh for dramatic effect when she shrugged off Blake's hand.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Blake retorted, sporting a genuine smile as she watched Yang stalk back into the kitchen. It was good to have her partner back in one piece. Though, if she was honest with herself, _pieces_ might be the better descriptor where the brawler's once-indomitable spirit was concerned.

Despite how badly she wanted to keep her spirits up for everyone around her, Blake could feel her thoughts wandering down darker avenues as they so often did in times of stress. Her smile slipped upon recalling the cavern, the fear she'd felt at witnessing the absolute fury Yang had radiated squarely in the face of absolute defeat. Her smile vanished entirely at the thought that in a sad, twisted way, she and her partner had more in common now - branded for life with the blood of the innocent.

No one should have to suffer that burden. Least of all someone as bright and positive as Yang... who, Blake realized with a start, was standing right in front of her, sans tray of food.

"I see you're back from outer space."

Blake didn't even have the chance to react before Yang took her hand and dragged her towards the couch, taking care to avoid stepping on the bright red cloak pooled around Ruby's still, slumbering form, as the brawler settled down next to her sister, pulling Blake down as well to sit beside her on the floor. All the tension from the day seemed to melt into something manageable as the Faunus relaxed into the familiar arm wrapping around her shoulders.

Throwing any notion of hesitation to the wind, Blake leaned heavily into her partner's warm embrace, stealing a quick glance at Ruby as she did. The younger girl's position hunched over half-on half-off the couch looked... uncomfortable, to say the least.

"Shouldn't we..."

"Nah," Yang's eyes didn't open as she casually threaded her hand through Blake's dark locks, fingertips resting just shy of her perked Faunus ears, "she's slept in weirder positions and been fine."

With a nonchalant shrug, Blake closed her eyes as well, keeping her practiced cool exterior even as she violently stamped down the _completely_ ill-timed thought that she really wanted those fingers just a few inches higher.

A small drop of wetness on the top of her head cleared her mind entirely. She didn't need to look to know what it was, or to know that she wanted it to stop. Blake curled both arms around Yang's waist and held fast, trying to mimic the hug she'd seen Ruby give earlier.

When more tears fell, one landing squarely between her Faunus ears, she tried to lift her head, but met resistance from the gloved hand currently holding her in place. Blake relented, recognizing her partner's silent plea for privacy, but the overwhelming desire to help drove her to act on impulse. She pressed as close as she could, nuzzling into the golden hair at Yang's neck. "I've got you," she breathed, barely above a whisper. A light shudder was her only response.

Huddled together this way, the pair eventually slipped into a restless sleep, leaving their worries for tomorrow as they stumbled after their teammates into the temporary respite of dreams.

* * *

Ruby sat on the edge of a cliff in her dream. Her crimson cape fluttered in an icy breeze. Her legs hung listless over empty space. Slate gray waves flattened themselves along one of Patch's rocky beaches far below. The faint taste of salt on the air came along with the biting cold, but she didn't get up or pull her cloak tighter. She just watched the waves break, one at a time.

A scratching sound like driftwood on stone reached her, but somehow even the thought of turning to look was a monumental effort.

Somebody sat beside her. She tried to see who, but all she saw was the black and pink sleeve cuffs at the edge of the hand pointing to the horizon. Her silver eyes drifted up.

A cloud as black and thick as tar poured low across the distant shore of the continent, and still she heard that scratching sound... like stone on wood. Sharpened bone on wood.

Grimm.

She started awake, ears full of that sound as she launched herself over the couch, Crescent Rose already locking into its open form in her hands. The fire had died down to nothing, and the moonlight on the snow stairs outside was all the light to see by. Finger on the trigger, she rapidly pieced together what had happened- she'd fallen asleep. Where were the others? Where was that sound coming from? Who was coughing?

"Guys?" she called behind her over the alarm bells in her mind. It was night. Grimm came out at night. Grimm would come _straight_ here at night. Her breath hung in the frigid air.

The sound was coming from the front door.

The racket dragged Yang and Blake from their slumber as well, the former snapping to attention at the sight of Weiss trying to cough her lungs up, while the latter struggled to hold on to sleep as long as she could, Faunus ears flattened in protest. She lasted all of two seconds before blearily getting to her feet.

Muttering something unintelligible, Blake stalked right past Ruby to the front door and threw it open.

A streak of gray fur shot between Blake's legs, making for the kitchen. Ruby sprang to intercept it, pulling up short when she saw the bristling whiskers, the pointed ears pinned back in alarm at the sight of the giant scythe.

"Hey, a kitty!" Ruby glanced at the door. No Grimm after all. She circled Crescent Rose back into compact form and crouched, holding out her hand, which the cat ignored, skirting around her on its quest for the kitchen. Ruby stood up, rubbing the back of her neck, "Ahaha... false alarm, guys."

Weiss struggled upright, swiping hair from her face. She scowled, "Next time, I'd appreciate it if you didn't step on me on your way to address it."

"Oh, uh," Ruby shrank as she slunk back to the couch to sit on the floor by her partner. "Sorry."

Wide awake after the scare, Ruby fetched a handful of kindling and started breaking it up to rebuild the fire.

Once a cursory visual check revealed Ruby and Weiss had suffered no lasting harm, Yang sighed, muscles tensing and relaxing as she stood to stretch. She faltered mid-yawn at the sight of her partner.

Blake hadn't moved from her position at the door, staring intently at what looked like a shaft of moonlight poking through from where the cat had dug a hole through the snow that had piled up to just underneath the eaves of the porch.

"Uh... Blake?"

Blake turned away from whatever had arrested her gaze, not to answer Yang, but to move, leaving the door open in her haste to climb through the window and ascend their handcrafted snowy stairs up to the surface.

"Blake!" Yang carefully slipped between Ruby and Weiss to tail her partner, and it was only the light of the stars and the shattered moon that kept her from crashing into Blake at the top. "What are you..." the brawler's question fell away as she found the answer with her own eyes. The still, cloudless night sky was barred by perfectly straight lines of blackish grey smoke rising from seemingly random points in the town. Yang squinted at the familiar sight. "...Chimney smoke?"

Blake gritted her teeth. "There are still survivors out there."

"What do you see?" Ruby called up anxiously from the doorway. She hung there, caught between running up to join them and staying with Weiss in the cabin.

"Smoke," Yang called back, trying to count just how many individual lines she could see... which, actually wasn't that many. At least, it was the middle of the night, so she couldn't see much at all. She could, however, very easily see Blake's bright, reflective eyes flitting across the landscape, taking careful note of each unwitting beacon.

"Not like fire smoke," Yang added as an afterthought, "more like, fir _place_ smoke. Lots of them."

Fire _place_ smoke meant other folks had made it, and had stuck it out through the blizzard. Ruby gripped the doorknob, chest suddenly full of hope. But how could they help those people if the miners and others didn't want them? She set her jaw, pondering.

Suddenly something touched her leg. She jumped, but it was just the cat. It meowed piteously, pressing its side against her shins.

"You guys coming in?" Ruby called up, stooping to stroke the cat's long, grey fur.

"Yeah!" Yang was already coming through the window, Blake following close behind. Where the Faunus held a darkened look of unease, her blonde partner was the picture of determination, fists clenched and amethyst eyes shining with her unspoken decision even as she asked aloud, "So, we're going to help them, right?"

"Why should we?" Blake growled, folding her arms across her stomach.

"Blake?" Yang rounded on her partner, eyes flashing with disbelief and something akin to sorrow.

"This town has made it more than clear how they feel about us," Blake shot back, ears flattening as she avoided both Ruby and Yang's gazes by looking to Weiss.

Try as she might to stay alert, the heiress had already slipped back into a heavy sleep as her aura and body recovered. She lay on her side, halfway under the covers, the picture of exhaustion.

"Blake," Ruby said softly after a minute, reaching to touch Blake's arm, "We're huntresses. Huntresses help people."

"Huntresses kill Grimm," Blake stepped back and pulled her arm away, eyes dropping to the floor, "and we are _not_ equipped to deal with the sheer numbers lying in wait beneath these mountains."

Ruby searched Blake's face, her heart sinking. She was right- they couldn't take another attack like that last one. They'd been sent here to gather information and clean things out if they could. Nobody had expected the thousands strong bat colony lurking beneath the base so the mountains. Now, with their scrolls malfunctioning, they couldn't even call for backup.

"We can try the emergency radio. And Chuck could still show up," she glanced towards the window, as if she'd be able to see the threads of smoke rising through the wall of snow obscuring the sky. "It's not like we can just leave them."

"Well, we won't have to if the emergency radio works and we can call for reinforcements, or en evac team, or whatever," Yang offered, speaking low and soft so as not to wake Weiss.

Blake simply scowled, not bothering to lift her head even as Yang came to stand near herself and Ruby, completing their small circle of discussion. "We definitely need backup," she admitted quietly, shaking her head, "But we don't even know where this fabled _emergency radio tower_ is supposed to be."

Yang's expression dimmed momentarily, then lit back up. "Ruby, do we still have that map of the town?"

Ruby started digging in her pockets at once, "Wasn't it supposed to be somewhere in town hall? I bet they've got a super secret radio room or something."

Right around then, her stomach gave a hearty growl.

She cringed, looking down at her middle and back up at the others sheepishly, "Uh. Did we eat dinner?"

At this, Yang smirked, nudging Blake with an elbow, "Told ya we should have made them eat."

Blake sighed, allowing herself a brief smile at her partner's quite literal ribbing, but it fell away as quickly as it appeared when she tried and failed to bring herself to look up at Ruby. "There is macaroni and cheese casserole in the kitchen."

She looked so sad with her kitty ears all drooped down. Ruby bounced one fist off the top of the other in a low-key sort of fidget, wanting to fix everything but not quite sure how. The heavy snow might buy them some time before anymore Grimm attacks, at least. She offered, "Maybe let's eat and we can figure out what to do in the morning. Sound okay?"

Blake nodded even though she'd lost her appetite, and grabbed the arm Yang was snaking towards the couch where Weiss lay. The pair held a brief conversation with their eyes, resulting in Yang relenting and following Blake into the kitchen as she muttered, "Fine, but I'm making that girl eat the biggest breakfast ever."


	24. Macaroni and Cheese and a Rock

Weiss glared at the huge plate piled with macaroni and cheese, then at Yang.

"Half," she bargained, crossing her arms over the blankets.

Yang glared right back, kneeling down to push the plate right into the stubborn heiress's arms. "Oh no. You skipped out on dinner. You are eating this _entire thing_ or so help me I will _feed it to you._ "

"I didn't skip dinner on purpose- I collapsed from exhaustion after those demented miners _shot at_ _me_ ," Weiss refused to take the plate, crossing her arms harder and lifting her chin in the pale light that filtered in through the window. "Plus my metabolism is _far_ more efficient than yours. I should only have to eat a quarter of that."

Yang visibly flinched at the mention of their narrow escape, but quickly recovered, raising both eyebrows in incredulity. "You should be eating _twice_ this much, I'm going easy on you!" Yang brandished the fork in her hand, sweeping it wide to indicate just how much food she had originally dumped on the plate before Ruby and Blake had intervened.

"You're _going_ to make me throw up," Weiss countered haughtily from her seat propped against the arm of the couch, "I'm lactose intolerant."

"Lies and deceit!" Yang would have thrown her arms in the air were she not holding a steaming hot plate of food that would rain down over the both of them. Actually, that was a fairly tempting idea. "I've _seen_ you eat ice cream! And yogurt!"

"I'm intolerant of _absurdly large doses_ of lactose, as well as any other sort of food you may try to force upon me," she pointed to the plate, offering again, "Half."

Yang's face twisted in pained fury. "Do you just not want to get better? Is that it? You just want to stay sleepy and grumpy and-" her expression suddenly lost all trace of anger, turning from honest confusion, to suspicion, to mild surprise. " _Is_ that it? You just want... more sleep?" Yang leaned forward, eyes wide, "More _cuddles with me?_ " She put the hand holding the fork over her heart and turned her head to the side, looking bashful. "Oh Weiss, you could have just asked~"

"What?! _No_." Weiss brought both hands up to ward Yang off as she spoke over her shoulder, "Honestly. Blake, come make your partner behave!"

"Weiss! I never would have guessed - you want cuddles from Blake too? Oh, you are _insatiable._ "

"Do I even want to know what you two are talking about?" The Faunus in question emerged from the kitchen, ears perked and eyes bright.

"Oh, Weiss was just expressing her secret desires to be cuddled by both of us at once."

Blake came to lean against the back of the couch, one dark eyebrow arched in amusement. "Oh? Weiss. I never knew. All you had to do was ask."

"Stay away from me," Weiss balled her fists, bristling, "I'm still only eating half of it, Yang."

A flurry of rose petals scattered over the couch as Ruby appeared, her crimson cloak swirling at her heels.

"Alright guys," Ruby crouched down and spread out a cut up cardboard box on the floorboards next to the couch, determination in her silver eyes as she announced to her teammates. "I've got a plan."

Yang lit up at the word 'plan'. "Yes, please, something productive," she handed the plate of macaroni over Weiss's head to Blake, tossing her the fork shortly thereafter. "Blake, she won't listen to me. You deal with her."

Blake blinked, shrugged, and offered the plate to the scowling heiress. "Take your time, eat as much as you can." Once Yang had focused her attention on Ruby, the Faunus leaned close to Weiss, dropping her voice to a whisper, "Just remember, the more you eat, the faster you'll recover, and the less you'll have to deal with Yang's coddling."

Weiss rolled her eyes, "Fine. Just give me the fork."

"Okay, So our main problem is the Grimm," Ruby indicated a crude sketch of James Point, flanked by mountains and an angry cartoon bat, "Gale may have blasted a whole bunch of the Liliac, but it sounds like there's more and we don't know when they'll come," she glanced at Blake, "Though actually with everyone hurt and scared in town we might attract other types of Grimm. Which would be bad. So we really, really need to look after the town, and we really, really need help.

"This brings us to plan number one: try the radio," she jabbed the picture of an old-time ham radio with the tip of her pen, "We should do that if no one in town's already tried it," Ruby looked between Yang, who was seated cross-legged on the rug, and Weiss, who poked at her macaroni, listening intently, "Uh... have they?"

The heiress raised her fork, "I was seventy-five percent unconscious for the past... however long it's been since the attack. We were _very_ snowed in at the clinic, though."

Yang nodded, "The farthest we got was tunneling over to the neighbor's house when supplies ran low."

"There were one or two miners around town hall searching for survivors," Blake added, coming around the side of the couch to sit on its arm, "But once they found Gale they... left pretty quickly. I'm not sure whether anyone went back to try the radio before the storm kicked in."

Ruby set her jaw for a second. It would be so much easier if they could use their scrolls, or if they could at least talk to whoever was currently in charge. Was there anyone in charge? So many townsfolk had died. A lump formed in her throat and she tried not to think about the numbers.

"So either we sneak up there and see if we can get it to work," Ruby said, rolling the pen between her fingers and thumb as she gauged her teammates reactions, "...or we try to talk with the miners and whoever else is keeping watch for the town."

"The radio," came Blake's immediate answer.

Yang took a few seconds longer to reply, subconsciously leaning back against the couch, closer to Weiss. "I'm not sure..." She glanced back at the heiress, "Are we all going?"

"I'm not," Weiss said, shifting so she was sitting upright. She was pale. Her fork rested on her plate, possibly to hide the shake in her hand, but her eyes were clear and focused, "Unless you want to wait a few days. But there's no guarantee we have that sort of time."

"Which is why we should see if anyone's already given the radio a shot," Ruby turned to Blake. The fire crackled. The woodpile was low. "We have to work together. If they really don't want us- if it's not just Gregor," just thinking of him gave her a burning feeling in her chest, like she got back at Beacon the times she saw Cardin pull Velvet's long Faunus ears when they passed in the hallway, "if it's not just him, we'll leave as soon as we can. But we have to try to help first."

Blake turned her head to avoid Ruby's eyes, only to find Yang staring up at her with an equally earnest look. Sometimes, the family resemblance was uncanny. Yang eventually released Blake from her gaze to focus on Ruby instead.

"If you're going to talk to the miners... take me with you."

"Seeing you is just going to agitate them." Blake interjected, suppressing a flinch at the darkened expression that settled over her partner's features.

"Yeah probably," Yang ran nervous fingertips through her hair, "but I don't want them to think I'm shirking my responsibility for this mess."

"Why would you care what they think?" Weiss addressed Yang, her gaze cold, her bearing regal even in her weakness, "Blake's right. If we have to contact the miners, fine, but you're not suited for negotiations."

For a second, Yang looked like she might argue, but she visibly deflated shortly thereafter, slumping against the couch with downcast eyes.

Blake moved to sit on the floor beside her partner in a silent show of support, resting what she hoped was a comforting hand on the brawler's knee, but her words were aimed at Ruby. "So I guess this means we're splitting up again?"

"Nope," Ruby grinned, pulling a slightly crumpled envelope from he back of her cardboard diagram, "This time, they're coming to us."

Weiss choked on her macaroni. "Here?"

"Yep. Anyway, it's not like they don't know where we are. I figure we'll talk on the roof," Ruby flipped the envelope in her hands. It was addressed, in Ruby's sloppy engineering scrawl, to 'James Pointers who want to talk' and contained a single sheet of notebook paper.

Blake nodded in wholehearted acceptance of the plan, glad there was a way to keep everyone close by, but she squinted at the handmade piece of mail, dubious as to how Ruby planned on delivering it. "Is that... a letter?"

"Yes it is," Ruby said, and from behind her back she produced a sizable chunk of granite. "And this is a rock. The catapult is on the roof. Well, it's not really a catapult- it's just the chimney and... uh... you don't mind if we use Gambol Shroud for a minute?"

With a good-natured eye roll, Blake unsheathed her weapon and handed the ribboned blade to her team leader. "We should be careful. It won't help our standing much if we go around breaking windows with rock-propelled messages."

"I'm a sniper, remember? I've got good aim," Ruby tucked the envelope into her belt to take her teammate's weapon, glancing at Weiss and the bruise that showed across her cheek and temple. She gripped the fist sized stone, setting her jaw. If they were aiming for Gregor's house, she might have hunted for a cinder block instead. But this was the clinic. It sounded like Cyan and Curtis had been doing their best. She rolled to her feet, giving a thumbs-up with the hand holding the rock. "Yang, wanna help?"

"Huh?" Yang blinked, coming back down to earth from wherever her mind had wandered to, "Oh, yeah sure." She stood and straightened her jacket,offering Ruby an absentminded smile. "Whatever you need, sis."

"Great. C'mon," Ruby caught Yang's arm and dragged her to the cabin door.

Weiss buried her arms beneath the blankets on her lap as the cold from the opened and shut door reached the couch. Her plate sat at the foot of the couch, clearly abandoned. She exchanged a glance with Blake, "Do you honestly think this is a good idea?"

In the absence of their partners' unique warmth of heart, Blake felt her expression cool to match Weiss's own icy visage. "No," she admitted after a short pause, "I think we should call in reinforcements and leave." Her Faunus ears flattened in frustration at the memory of how quickly those sad, thankful smiles she'd been graced with upon her arrival at the mines had turned sour, distrustful, even hateful once she'd lost the protection of her bow. She had no tolerance for hypocrites.

"I see no reason to trouble ourselves with a town that clearly wants nothing to do with us," Blake said in a low growl as she leaned back against the couch, crossing her arms. "Which... is probably why I am not this team's leader," she sighed.

Weiss remained silent for a moment.

"Our scrolls haven't been working for a while now," she said, brow furrowed as she gathered the blankets up to her shoulders. "We're supposed to send in reports every day."

"Reports are the least of our worries right now." Blake's head dropped backwards onto the couch, closing her eyes in a futile attempt to ward off the general feeling of unease that had been growing since she first set foot in that cavern with Yang.

Would the miners keep attacking, forcing them to raise their weapons against civilians? Would any of them survive their next round with the seemingly endless supply of Grimm infesting the mountains? Even if they did, and made it back to Beacon, would they be punished? Held back a year for such poor results? Would Yang be expelled for reckless endangerment?

A soft creaking sound filtered through the Faunus's negative haze, and she opened her eyes, ears twitching towards the ceiling, eager for something neutral to focus on. After silently tracking the footsteps treading across the roof for a while, Blake got to her feet. Turning to glance between Weiss and the abandoned plate of food.

"Try to eat some more if you can. I have a feeling we're going to need you at full strength sooner than later."

Weiss's troubled expression gave way to annoyance.

"Please, I know what my body needs. If you want to be helpful, keep Yang off my case," she crossed her arms under the blankets, "And _don't_ try to cuddle me."

Blake squinted down at the heiress, quietly whispering as she turned to head into the kitchen, " _Cactus._ "

Weiss settled back down on the couch, kicking the blankets into place over her legs and allowing her scowl to soften into an uncertain frown. The fire crackled, and Yang and Ruby clomped around on the roof.

To be honest, Weiss didn't care all that much for sending reports, and there were much bigger problems to worry about at the moment, but Beacon's system was in place for a reason. Small villages like these often disappeared without a trace, occasionally taking Huntresses and Huntsmen with them. Steady communication was one of the only means school had of keeping track of its students once they were out in the field.

Two consecutive days of missed reports was grounds enough to send in a support team to help or, as was more often the case, pick up whatever pieces were left. A false alarm enacted due to a team forgetting to send its reports was grounds for suspension from all fieldwork. Weiss remembered glaring holes in the side of Ruby's head as she took notes that class, knowing the younger girl would be apt to forget that detail.

Now, with the attack and the snowstorm, they'd failed to report. Not just for two days, but for however long the storm had lasted, plus one and a half clear days afterward. They were only a couple of hours out by airship.

Weiss gazed into the dwindling fire, searching the coals for the answer to the nagging question:

Why hadn't Beacon sent anyone after them?

* * *

 **A/N: Shout outs to MysteriousGuy, whose reviews always make our day, and the guest who suggested that all the smoke they saw last chapter was from the burning of bodies. I would say "Wow, morbid much?" except we did kill pretty much the whole town.**

 **Anyway, yeah. Love you guys. See you next week, possibly on an actual Tuesday for once!**

 **-Fiercesomest**

 **Super secret extra A/N: yeah seriously so much love to all you guys you are so patient and fabulous and wonderful and HUGS for ALL y'all**

 **-Defenestrator**


	25. Birds of a Feather

A/N: hEY guys, goodness sorry this is like a week late. Buuuuuut since my night class is over now, that shouldn't be an issue any more ha hA. ahhhhh hah yeah I'm so sorry. x.x

HUGS OF APOLOGY,  
Defenestrator

* * *

"It either went down the chimney or bounced off onto the roof," Ruby perched on the kitchen table, fiddling with Crescent Rose. After launching the message, she'd decided it would be a good idea to take stock of what food they had in the cabin. Weiss was sleeping in the other room, and both Yang and Blake looked like they needed a task to get their minds off of things. Ruby worked the bolt, chambering a regular round of ammo. It felt good to work with her hands. "Thanks for letting us borrow Gambol, by the way, Blake."

"I must admit, you've taught me more creative uses for my weapon in one week than I've learned in all my years of training," Blake mused, one hand gently scratching the ears of the cat that had taken up residence in their kitchen, while the other typed into her scroll whatever numbers Yang counted off to her.

"That's my sis for ya, always thinking outside the box! Twenty-four," Yang shoved the two stacks of tuna cans next to the bag of rice and boxes of noodles, moving on to counting cans of peas. Supplies looked decent, as far as nonperishables went, at least enough for a week with the four of them. Maybe even longer than that, considering Weiss really only counted as half a person when it came to food portions. Then again, both she and Ruby ate enough for three people so... so maybe it would be best to leave the math to Blake.

"Twelve." The peas joined the cans of tuna as Yang turned her attention next to the corn. She paused when Blake didn't give her usual affirmative "mmhmm," and turned back to see the Faunus and the cat both staring off into the distance, ears perked at attention.

Just when Yang was about to ask what was wrong, Blake got to her feet and locked eyes with Ruby.

"Something's coming."

Ruby was up at once, gripping her scythe, "Is it sledding? Walking?"

Yang shot to her feet as well, keeping perfectly silent other than the fluid series of steely clicks from Ember Celica extending into place.

Blake's ears swiveled, searching, trying to discern any familiar qualities in the low rumble coming from outside. "I'm not sure," she whispered. Her eyes narrowed, then widened when she finally placed it. "Neither. It sounds mechanical."

"Like an engine?" Yang proposed, her cautious expression hardening when Blake nodded.

"Like an airship?" Ruby breathed. She and the others exchanged glances. In a flash, she was at the couch, "Weiss, wake up!"

The heiress jolted up, flailing at the rose petals that showered over her, but Ruby was already out the front door, packed snow crunching under her boots as she took the makeshift stairs two at a time.

The town lay quiet, still buried in white. Wind whipped across the surface of the snow, snatching at Ruby's cloak like it wanted to tear it away.

Ruby shielded her eyes, searching the blue overhead for the source of the increasingly loud whine of a single Dust engine.

Wait. A single engine?

She listened to make sure.

... didn't airships generally have two engines?

A loud _scrape_ of rock on metal sounded from the peaks over the town, and a battered ship tore across the air cupped in James Point valley. Gouts of black smoke poured from its one remaining engine- the other clattered uselessly down the cliffs and was lost in the trees as, with a soul-grinding screech, an enormous Nevermore swept over the ridge top in pursuit of the airship.

Blake followed close behind, arriving at Ruby's side just in time to watch the Nevermore rear back and throw both wings forward in a powerful flap, shooting countless jagged black feathers directly into the battered airship. The simple cargo ship's hull was little protection, the feathers puncturing straight through and throwing up immense clouds of dust where they struck the ground below.

On instinct, Blake drew her weapon when the ship lurched, its path drifting distinctly to the side missing its engine. "It's coming this way."

Ruby traced the ship's trajectory in a second. It wasn't on a direct course right now, but it wouldn't take much of a shift for the mangled airship to come plowing straight through the cabin.

"Get the sled," she told Blake and turned, colliding with her sister halfway down the stairs. The nevermore called out again, soaring overhead close enough for the rush of wind following it to kick up snow. Ruby flailed her arm behind her as she leapt down the remaining stairs, calling, "Distract it!"

"Got it!" Yang called over her shoulder, weathered shingles flying as she skidded to a stop on the roof. Sharpened amethyst eyes took in her surroundings at once.

Blake behind her at the roof's front edge, using Gambol Shroud like a grappling hook to pull their patchwork sled from its ice-cave hiding place over to the top of the snow-carved stairs.

The airship - the very same cargo ship that had brought them here, she was sure of it - falling fast in a steep glide as thick black smoke trailed from the gaping holes in its hull torn open by the unshakable assailant it was only barely outpacing.

The Nevermore - looming large directly behind its wounded prey, its crooked grasping talons reaching forward, mid-dive, scant feet from crushing the ship's tail into scrap metal.

Yang grit her teeth, deciding then and there to design herself at least a few long range shots that weren't so... indiscriminate. If she tried to shoot the Nevermore directly she'd risk hitting the ship. The airborne pair was, however, already dangerously low to the ground.

Her split-second decision made, Yang aimed low, straight at the ground beneath the airship, and fired a rapid volley of incendiary rounds into the snow. The resulting explosion kicked up a wall of powdery white that only barely missed the airship, an enraged shriek tearing through the air as the Nevermore disappeared from view, completely engulfed in blinding snowy debris that forced it upwards and away from its prize.

Yang's triumphant smirk lasted all of a half-second, wiped from her face by the familiar sound of a singular, powerful wingbeat.

Adrenaline flooded her system. She knew what was coming.

"Heads up!"

The wall of snow she'd created billowed forward as if to answer the brawler's call, erupting in a second shower of razor-edged feathers. A lucky shot tore the remaining engine from the ill-fated airship, sending it into a tailspin, but Yang never had the chance to worry - the scattered line of feathers descended in an instant.

It was all she could do to throw herself sideways into the snow and out of the line of fire to avoid being impaled, praying that the cry from Blake that somehow reached her ears over the hideous sound of splintering wood was merely one of concern. Thick, ice-cold clouds flew up around the feathers that struck snow, obscuring Yang's field of vision, but not before her blood ran cold at the sight of five sable feathers piercing straight through their cabin's roof.

* * *

The feathers struck the wood floor and stuck like knives, close enough for the bristles to brush Ruby's face as she yanked Weiss from the couch.

"What's going on," the heiress snarled, fighting the darkness rimming her vision from being dragged upright so quickly.

"Nevermore," Ruby fumbled to get Weiss's arms around her shoulders.

"Obviously!" The forest of black feathers embedded in the hardwood didn't leave room for doubt.

"Hang on, we're going up," Ruby braced her bootsoles for a second, like a racer on the blocks. Weiss ducked her head into the shoulder of her cloak, as she and Ruby shot out the open door and up the stairs to the light, petals scattering in her wake.

"Blake! Blake?" she called, skidding on the shredded shingles, trying to make sense of the chaos of broken wood and scrambled snow.

"Over here!" Blake called back, emerging from one of the receding walls of snow, teeth grit as she pulled the sled up onto the roof - what was left of it anyway. The back half of the sled sat a few feet away, shorn clean off by a feather that was currently impaling a dissipating shadow clone. She gave Ruby and Weiss split-second once over, relieved to see the pair unscathed.

"Where's-"

A shrill screech from the Nevermore as it burst back into view drowned out the rest of Blake's question, but her answer came in the form of three distinct shots tearing up from one of the looming clouds of snow surrounding the buried shaft of another feather a few feet out from the roof's edge. One shot narrowly missed the airship, another grazed the Grimm's wide-open beak, exploding harmlessly against the blackened bone, but the third found its mark, blasting one of the beast's four eyes clean out of its head, showering the ground below in a splash of crimson.

The Nevermore shrieked and dove to the side to protect its gouged eye, narrowly missing the airship it had been gunning for - the airship that was seconds from impacting the ground right where those three shots had come from.

Ruby looked up at the plane-shaped mess of ravaged steel. There was no time to get clear. She dove off the side of the roof, taking Weiss with her as the passenger airship slammed into the cabin. Steel screeched on stone and the chimney shattered, its stones vanishing in the deep snow. The walls toppled, boards and logs snapping like matchsticks. Ice blew everywhere.

Ruby thought someone cried out, but she wasn't sure if it was Weiss or Blake or herself. Where was Yang? She struggled to turn in the snow- the dive had put her a few feet down. Bits of shingle and splintered wood rained down from above.

In a few seconds, it was over.

"Weiss, you okay?" Ruby tried to flounder her way around so she could shield her partner. Her ears were ringing with quiet, and not being able to see outside the rim of their hole was making her crazy.

"I'm fine," Weiss coughed. Snow was stuck to her shirt and pants and clung in her hair. Half-sunk, the two of them were a tangled mess. Ruby kicked to get her cloak free from where it had gotten wound around her leg. Weiss tried to call up a glyph to help them get out of the snow, but the white circle flickered and gave out almost as soon as it formed.

The nevermore shrieked again. It was coming back around. Ruby half-extended Crescent Rose, aiming up in case it tried to come after them while she tried to think of a way out of this.

"Ruby! Weiss!" Blake's desperate calls carried poorly, overshadowed by the enraged cries of the Nevermore banking through a wide turn at a painstakingly slow pace, hampered by its own immense size. She emerged from the debris, brushing splinters of wood, bits of stone, and pieces of hot metal from her hair and clothes. She stared straight at the wall of twisted steel sitting right beside her, cringing at the tingling sensation that crept up her spine at the forceful dissipation of her shadow clone crushed beneath it.

Mind reeling a bit from her narrow escape, the Faunus scrambled up what was left of the airship's fragmented hull, unable to see the cockpit buried in the depths of what little remained of the cabin's first floor. A loose mixture of rubble and shrapnel shifted beneath her feet as she perched on a warped piece of metal jutting up from the ship's center, trying to find a better vantage point to find her teammates.

"Yang!"

No immediate answer came. For a fleeting moment Blake wondered if she was the only one who had escaped, panic seizing her heart until finally a familiar voice shouted back.

"On your left!"

Blake whipped around, dizzy with unspeakable relief at the sight of Yang, unharmed, hanging on the shaft of a feather that had been knocked askew by the airship. The brawler leaped, landing heavily next to her partner's metal perch, ridding herself of most of the snow clinging to her person with a great, full-bodied shake.

"Where's Ruby?" Yang asked immediately afterwards, eyes straying for a moment to track the Nevermore overhead. It had nearly finished its turn.

Blake snapped her focused back to scanning the snow, eyes lighting up when she caught a splash of red and black - the tip of Crescent Rose. "There." One light jump down from her perch and she was at Yang's side, securing the end of Gambol Shroud's ribbon to her partner's arm. Yang nodded in silent understanding, going back to tracking the Nevermore's return as she braced herself.

The Faunus made a running jump, landing deep in the powdery snow just shy of where she'd seen Crescent Rose, her ribbon stretched taut behind her, a lifeline. She worked her free hand into the loose wall of powder between their landing spots, pushing through to find cool, snow-damp hair beneath her fingers. "Ruby!" she called once more, hoping against hope the other girl was conscious, "Is Weiss in there with you?"

Weiss shrieked, "Let go of my hair!"

"Yang, you're okay!" Ruby braced Crescent Rose with her one arm and used the other to dig, shoving snow aside to find her sister. She noticed Blake's ribbon wound around her arm, "What's going on up there? Can you give us a lift?"

Blake released what was apparently a handful of Weiss's hair, pulling her arm back to peer through the hole she'd made in the snow, leaning back seconds later as Ruby demolished the rest of the icy barrier between them. She couldn't help but smile at the younger girl's fervor to reach who she thought was her sister, the look shifting to one of simple relief as she glanced between Ruby's confused expression and Weiss's perpetual scowl. Both seemed unharmed.

"Sorry, it's just me," Blake deadpanned, the looming shadow of the Nevermore closing in overhead lending a sense of urgency to her movements as she reached out to secure an arm beneath Ruby's shoulders, not even waiting for a response before she twisted her head around to call back to her partner, "Yang! Pull!"

Ruby locked both her arms around Weiss, who gritted her teeth and hung on, one arm over Ruby's neck and one hand gripping Blake's sleeve.

A forceful yank on the ribbon wound around Blake's arm signaled Yang's acknowledgement of her order, and with both teammates in tow, she used the momentum afforded by the brawler's strong, steady pull to help trudge back through the snow towards the roof.

Ruby struggled to walk, her combat boots vanishing in the white between pulls. Snow fell down her collar and in her face as she held onto her partner with dogged determination till finally they came to the edge of what used to be the roof. Now it was just a pile of semi-packed rubble and snow. She recognized stones from the chimney and long, shattered timbers that used to be rafters.

Her head snapped up at the sound of cannon fire from uphill. The miners were out on the rooftops, blasting away at the screeching Nevermore as it wheeled across the rim of the valley, its wingtips brushing ice from the cliffs.

"C'mon up you two," Yang pulled Ruby onto one of the larger sections of roof sloped against the aircraft's side, hoisting Weiss up along with her and catching the heiress's elbow when she stumbled. Blake followed close behind, shoving her teammates practically into Yang's arms as she took up the last bit of what little level space remained.

The Faunus's ears flattened at the now endless rounds of erratic fire, punctuated by random irritated screeches. She shot an equally irritated glance at the miners. They were only making the Nevermore angry.

Rather than watch idiots get themselves killed, Blake opted for addressing a more immediate need. She cast a quick calculating glance down at a small opening in the rubble that seemed to lead to the buried cockpit below, then turned questioning eyes to her partner.

Yang, who had apparently been watching her the entire time, nodded in understanding and released Weiss, trusting Ruby to keep the heiress steady. With a cursory check of the ribbon wrapped around her arm, the brawler braced herself once more and watched Blake slip between metal and stone to disappear beneath the wreckage.

Ruby noted Blake going after the pilot ( _don't think of Chuck, don't think of Chuck,_ she told herself) and helped Weiss kneel without getting scraped up by the razor sharp spurs of metal on the surface of the bulkhead. The ship hadn't blown up at least, which didn't exactly mean it _wouldn't_ blow up, but it was better than nothing.

The Nevermore clawed enormous rocks off the cliff side, sending them crashing down on the frozen town.

Ruby set her jaw. They had to stop this.

"Don't they have anyone who can properly manage aura?" Weiss tried to stand again, leaning on Ruby. She was lightheaded and sick, and let her partner guide her back down to her knees on the metal. She grumbled as she put her head down, "Idiots..."

Plain old cannon balls didn't exactly pack a lot of punch against creatures of darkness.

They had to get over there. Or get the Grimm back over here, where Ruby could at least take chunks out of it with Crescent Rose. For now, she crouched with her hands on Weiss's shoulders and called, "Blake, do you see anything?"

Dust, smoke, snow, sparks bleeding from severed electrical lines dangling from mangled wings. There were plenty of things Blake's Faunus eyes could see, cutting through the areas where light couldn't reach with her darkvision, but the airship itself was barely recognizable save for its basic shape, its wreckage intermingled with the cabin's ruins.

Blake crept over what was left of the couch, stepping gingerly around the splinters of wood that once made up its frame as she edged towards the ship's cockpit, climbing over the airship's main door, torn from its hinges by the crash. The once eight-foot doorway into the airship's side had been crushed down to less than half its original size by the collapsed stones of the fireplace, leaving nothing more than a small crawl space.

"I found the ship's entrance," she called to answer Ruby before slipping through into even deeper darkness, careful not to upset a single piece of metal or stone.

Her lifeline to the surface wouldn't do much good if the wreckage collapsed around her.

It took a moment for Blake's eyes to adjust, fully dilating to pull visibility from the flickering red strips of emergency lighting lining a path away and up into the airship's twisted cargo hold. To her other side, the cockpit had been crushed inwards where it had met an unforgiving cabin wall reinforced by packed ice - an accordion of metal and electric wiring housing a still figure in the pilot's chair, slumped over the cockpit's dashboard, half-buried in snow and glass.

Heart in her throat, Blake immediately rushed to the figure's side, pressing her hand to a back that was ice-cold and disturbingly solid. "Are you-" Her upper ears twitched, catching the deep rumbling crunch of a computer processor. The high piercing _whoosh_ of pneumatic limbs followed seconds later, and the figure jerked, flinging a bladed metal arm backwards, straight through the neck of a shadow clone.

The real Blake crouched a few feet back in a defensive stance, frozen in confusion as a heavily dented Atlesian Knight, one of the newer AK-200 models, shakily pulled itself from the chair into a standing position and turned to face Blake, the white lights of its faceless helmet dim and flickering.

"In-in-int-t-t-trrrrruuuuuder. I-i-iden-den-dentify yourself," it managed in a sad mechanical stutter, clearly damaged by the crash.

The Faunus slowly rose from her crouch, pushing back unpleasant memories of the last time she'd heard those same words uttered from an older model, an aural snapshot from what felt like a previous life. This time, she waited, allowing the android to sweep her with its sensors. Had Beacon sent reinforcements in the form of Atlas's military? It was unconventional, but certainly not unwelcome.

"I am a student," she spoke clearly, wondering what key words the android would respond to - whether it would respond at all in its damaged state, "A huntress-in-training from Beacon."

The android snapped to attention. Blake relaxed a bit, as it seemed "Beacon" had been the word to trigger a response.

it was not the response she anticipated.

Amber eyes went wide as the android's hands shifted into Gatling guns.


	26. Put 'em on Ice

Above ground, Yang felt a sharp awkward tug on the ribbon wound around her arm. Adrenaline flooded her system at the distinct sound of gunfire _other_ than Gambol Shroud's coming from below. The adrenaline gave way to a lead pit of worry that dropped in her stomach when the short burst of sound ended gave way to a far larger chorus of shots, not one of them the familiar pistol rounds of her partner.

"Blake!?"

"Yang!"

Tension bled from the brawler at the almost instantaneous response. She then felt an insistent pull on Blake's ribbon, relief flowing through her when Blake herself poked her head up from the debris to clamber up and stumble into her partner's waiting arms. Blake subconsciously gripped Yang's shoulders for dear life, eyes wide with panic. The Faunus was peppered with angry red lines weeping red, each marking where a bullet had grazed past her in one too many near misses.

Yang pulled her away from the opening, still echoing with the angry roar of ceaseless gunfire. "Blake, what-" Ruby took in Blake's trace wounds and stared at the gap in the wreckage that led down to the ship. This was Chuck's plane, wasn't it? She craned her neck to see the identification markings along the side. Why was he carrying robots? Why were they firing at Blake? She asked, "Did you find Chuck?"

Blake shook her head both as an answer, and to clear it a bit, "It looked like a standard Atlesian Knight was piloting the ship - I didn't see any people down there."

That didn't make any sense. Ruby gripped Weiss's shirt a little harder. "So they sent us a ship full of security bots?"

A stray bullet tore through part of the ship's hull, falling harmless in the snow a ways off. Far up into the town, the Nevermore dove at the rooftops, its claws coming away with shingles and bits of rafter.

Ruby looked from the Grimm to the ship lodged in the remnants of the cabin. Blake still seemed spooked, and Weiss was going to be down for the count before long. Yang was good, though. And they were a team, no matter how beat-up they were. Ruby figured they could still pull off what she had in mind. "Did they send a Paladin?"

Blake nodded, pushing a bit of hair out of her face and standing a bit straighter. "Yes. its feet are currently secured to what's left of the cargo hold's floor."

An unnerving clang sounded from somewhere below. The bullets and energy shots were starting to tear through the metal with greater frequency. Ruby and Weiss scrambled back as part of the hull began to give way.

The Knights had gone insane. The heiress shot Blake a glare, "What did you do?!"

"I didn't do anything!" Blake snapped, pulling Yang along with her as they too tried to avoid the shifting debris being shot to pieces beneath their very feet. "They attacked me first!"

"Uh, guys," Ruby brought Crescent Rose up to shield Weiss as the clanging stopped. Now instead, footsteps pounded in the metal hull. The Knights were loose.

"Try to point them in the direction of Mr. Nevermore up there." The giant Grimm screeched, batting away the distant cannon fire. Crazy or malfunctioning or what, the Knights might still be useful. Ruby chambered a round, "If they're stuck on us, take them out."

Still jutting out over the wreckage of the cabin, the airship's tail began to ring with the sound of those steps even as Ruby spoke. There was barely any time for the young team leader's directions to sink in before a bladed arm thrust straight through the hull and swept in a wide arc, sending a shower of sparks raining down on Blake and Yang, who braced themselves, ready for the Atlesian Knights to push through.

They did not ready themselves for the Atlesian Paladin that exploded through the weakened metal, landing unevenly on the wreckage just in front of them.

Time seemed to slow down as the large mech suit righted itself. It stood tall, at least three times Ruby's height, dominating the relatively small area above the snow.

The suit's sealed cockpit was empty.

Time sped back up, and the Knights from below came climbing out of the hole in the air-ship's tail. The automated Paladin shifted its guns into position, strafing bullets across what was left of the cabin's roof, scattering rubble and scraps of slate shingle.

Crescent Rose flashed, deflecting the shots that neared Ruby and Weiss. Ruby grabbed Weiss's shoulder, pushing her to the edge of the roof as she yelled to the others, "Go. Go!"

Blake reacted first, crouching and leaping directly into the fray, using the Paladin as a springboard and vaulting herself directly over the stream of Knights as far towards the nevermore as she could. Just as she suspected, a good portion of them tracked her, dropping like lead into the snow surrounding the roof. For being built by Atlas, the things were surprisingly ill-equipped for snowy terrain.

Still on the roof, Yang watched as Blake skirted the surface of the snow, darting forward with short zigzagging bursts in a beeline for the nevermore. She growled when the Paladin swiveled around to track the Faunus, sending its spray of bullets to intersect Blake's path. Thinking fast, she tackled the Paladin's leg, grinning when she felt the mechanical monster lose its balance.

Meanwhile, Weiss fell off the roof. She shrieked, arms flailing back as Ruby accidentally toppled her over the edge. Ruby snapped a glance at the heiress-sized hole in the snow, "Whoops."

A shadow crossed her. The Paladin loomed up, stumbling to find footing on the slate. Gritting her teeth, Ruby slid her hands to grip her scythe just right and leapt up at the robot, intending to carve a way into the driver's seat.

Below, Weiss spat snow and kept her head down, fighting through the black that rimmed her vision.

 _Don't pass out. Don't pass out._ The incessant ringing in her ears subsided and she tried to look around. Apparently she'd tumbled through the drift onto a disjointed piece of the cabin's porch, the snow cushioning her fall. Firewood was scattered everywhere and the front door hung at a crazy angle from one of its hinges. Up above, the clash of metal and energy fire sounded.

If only she had Myrtenaster... or her Dust supply. Weiss focused on the cabin door. Her luggage must have survived. At least, they hadn't been blown sky high by her collection of Dust, so that was a good sign. She pushed herself up to her hands and knees. Maybe she could get to it.

* * *

The Knights that found themselves sunk in the drifts struggled for a moment before shifting modes. A white panel scrolled open, allowing compact twin Dust-propulsion engines to extend from where the robots' shoulder blades appeared.

The steady, rising hum was all the warning Blake had before the mechanical soldiers burst from the snow, the engines at their back and in the soles of their robotic boots propelling them after the fleet-footed Faunus.

Blake did her best to outrun them, her feet barely making contact with anything solid each time she surged forward, leaving afterimages standing atop the snow like ghostly shadows, but for all the effort, she knew her semblance wasn't built for raw speed, and she could hear the Knights gaining ground faster than she'd predicted. She didn't need to look behind her, she could hear four separate sets of engines speeding around her, blocking her sight with the clouds of snow they were kicking up in their wake.

The Faunus shot to her left without warning, Gambol Shroud flashing as she caught the first Knight off guard, her blade catching just where the android's helmet met its neck, severing its head clean from its shoulders. It was nice to see certain weaknesses in their design hadn't been remedied even in these upgraded models. One down. Before she could sink into the powdery top layer of snow, Blake used the downed Knight as a springboard, her sword already converting to pistol form as she leaped high into the air and whipped her weapon at the Knights beneath her. Two more went down in quick succession, and she aimed her descent at the one remaining Knight.

As soon as she dropped back into the shrinking cloud of kicked up snow, a heavy rush of wind nearly threw her off course, but she adjusted midair, noting the way the Knight tracked her instead of the shadow clone she'd left behind - these things had to have thermal vision. It didn't matter though, she ran Gambol Shroud straight through its face, jumping from its quickly slumping shoulders back into the air.

A round of cannon-fire from the miners whizzed overhead, drawing Blake's eyes behind her. It hadn't been wind. The Nevermore had blown past her overhead, angled in a steep dive, its blood-red eyes peering directly at the Paladin wrestling with the sisters, drawn to that polished metallic body catching the sun's rays, bright and irresistibly shiny as it spun its entire torso around, backhanding Yang straight down through the wreckage of the roof and trying valiantly to dislodge Ruby from its face.

Crescent Rose's blade sliced a neat line across the surface of the bullet-proof plate glass. It was tough stuff. Ruby kicked off one of the mech's arms and dragged her weapon up, re-sinking it in a steel panel atop one of its shoulders, hoping to expose some of its wiring.

* * *

Down below, Weiss dropped to the floor of the porch, shielding her head from the chunks of wood and slate as Yang came crashing through, tearing the door off its hinges on her way.

"Watch it," she chided, coughing and brushing splinters from her hair.

"Weiss?" Yang sputtered, brick and mortar sliding off her like pebbles as she pushed herself to her feet. Her outline had already started to take on a golden shimmer. "How did you-" an ear-splitting screech cut the brawler's question short, and she looked up just in time to see a dark shadow obscure the hole she'd just fallen through, followed seconds later by the cringe-worthy sound of twisting, warping metal as the Nevermore's talons gripped and crushed, grasping all they could of the Paladin's shoulders.

Yang thought she could see a flicker of red somewhere in the ensuing chaos of movement above, and her worry for Ruby doubled as the Paladin began to shoot wildly, bullets ripping up through the air at the Nevermore, out across the snow, and down into the weakened cabin debris.

She looked like she was about to throw herself back up into the fray. Weiss caught the bandana around her leg, twisting it hard to get her attention, "Yang, get my suitcase."

* * *

Ruby clung to the back of the Paladin, trying to get a foothold while the bot swung around, firing in all directions. Sparks showered from the ruined scraps of circuitry in its shredded torso.

The Nevermore screeched at it, its massive claws fumbling for a grip on the energy gun set in the mech's arm to stop the hail of bullets. Pieces of its steel plating tore off and fell clattering among the wreckage.

"Thank you!" Ruby called out as she slid into the cockpit through the gaping hole in the suit's crushed and mangled armor. Light poured through the hole. Her silver eyes assessed the damage. The holographic view screens were either malfunctioning or offline. Red lights flared across the status panel as the Nevermore buffeted the Paladin with its wings. She strapped in, heart pounding in her throat, Crescent Rose propped close at hand as she caught the controls. Sparks showered over her head, forcing her to duck. She hit the black switch to cut off autopilot.

The entire suit powered down, stopping mid-swing as the Nevermore attempted to drag it across the wrecked airship.

* * *

Yang threw a look at Weiss, silently asking if she was insane, but it was quickly replaced by one of understanding in the half-second it took to remember that one of Weiss's many suitcases was packed with highly volatile vials of pure dust. The brawler made a quick scan of the wreckage around them, frowning at the layer of debris that littered the floor. She openly grimaced at where the airship had crushed the stairs. "Please don't tell me it was upstairs."

"They were just inside the front door," Weiss released Yang so she could look around. She tried to gather herself to stand, but wound up resting her head down on her arms to dizziness at bay.

Yang immediately glanced down at the door she'd leveled, grinning when she caught sight of a solid corner of white peeking out from underneath the splintered oak. "Well I'll be," she muttered, dragging the case out from its hiding place, pleased to find it without a single scratch - the thing was probably made of weapons grade materials or something.

Just as she was bringing the case over to Weiss, the grating crunch and snap of metal sounded above, followed an instant later by a deafening crash as one of the Paladin's arms fell through what was left of the ceiling. Yang dropped the suitcase, leaping to intercept the falling twisted hunk of metal, bodily diverting its direct course towards Weiss, and landing in a heap with it a few feet away.

The brawler sprang back up not a moment later, dashing to crouch over Weiss, checking her for any new injures, and breathing a sigh of relief when there were none. "OK. Ooookay, not safe here," she stole a glance at the quickly weakening ceiling, then back down at Weiss, torn between protecting her still-recovering teammate, and simply heading back into the fray to remove the threat altogether.

In the chaos above, the Nevermore flapped as hard as it could, slowly lifting its newly lightened prize into the air, even as the remaining Knights converged beneath it to fire everything they had all at once at the half-scrapped Paladin - at the huntress inside. One of them jumped, firing the jets in its legs and feet for the added height as it reached out to grasp the Paladin's dangling leg. It made it roughly half-way to its target before being unceremoniously yanked back to the ground by Gambol Shroud, smashing into another unsuspecting Knight, leaving the two in a crumpled, sparking pile.

The rest of the Knights turned to face their attacker, only to find a shadow clone dissipating into nothingness.

All of a sudden, the lights on the Paladin flickered to life. Its arm cannon swung upwards, flush with the Nevermore's leg. A charge of white energy gathered at the end of the barrel.

CRACK! The kick from the shot tore the Paladin from the giant bird's talons. Ruby yanked the controls, jamming the auto-righting mechanism to get the suit's legs under itself as it clanged down hard into the airship, sliding backwards into the cabin wreckage.

When the suit responded, she was thrilled. She was a kid just given 500,000 lien's worth of candy. The stupid grin on her face could have made her poster child for Stupid-Grins-R-Us.

Atlesian Knights swarmed over the ship, raining down bullets. Ruby ignored the warnings of left-arm failure and critical systems damage for now. There were gaping holes in the glass and armor, so she didn't need the view screens anyway.

"Bet you wish you were on my team," the tip of her tongue poked out the side of her mouth as she focused and brought the Paladin's guns to bear on the much smaller, much less-armored Knights.

* * *

Between the falling debris and Yang's statement of a very obvious fact, Weiss had managed to half crawl, half lunge the two feet to her suitcase. She punched in a patterned code on a silver panel near the luggage's handle, and the latch snapped open.

"Take ice. The Knights-" she struggled lifting the lid of the case from her position. Inside were a number of jars, plus an array of crystals set in hollowed spaces in the foam interior. Unfortunately, Weiss's vision was going black, like she was going to faint. She shut her eyes and put her head down on the cold metal rim of the suitcase, sucking in air through her teeth as she fumbled for a shard of ice crystal to show Yang. She gave up, growling, "Just figure it out."

"What do you mean _just figure it out!?_ " Yang shot back, managing to grab the crystal before Weiss dropped it. "Weiss?" she tried again, gritting her teeth when there was still no response other than the heiress trying to get her breath back.

The roof above them creaked and shuddered, and Yang leaned over her downed teammate to shield her from the entire shingles and other falling chunks of debris, no doubt dislodged by the Nevermore's powerful wingbeats. "So help me I am going to carve those words on your tombstone-" Yang's griping was cut short by a heart-stopping explosion, and her head snapped up just in time to watch the one-armed Paladin crash through the airship's side and collide with the downed chimney.

Yang was on her feet in less than a second, jumping to drop into a fighting stance roughly two paces in front of Weiss, daring the slowly rising mechanical menace to take one step closer with a bright flash of her semblance - a flash which illuminated the Paladin's new, blessedly familiar pilot. "Ruby?!"

At that very moment, another familiar face crashed down through the ceiling to deftly land atop the Paladin's mangled shoulders - Blake - striking a familiar pose that registered with Yang immediately, one she'd seen countless times during practice, lithe body and arms twisted, coiled like a spring and ready to sweep both halves of Gambol Shroud straight through the visibly weakened cockpit.

"Blake WAIT!"

The Faunus halted mid-strike, surprise visibly etched onto her features when amber snapped up to meet amethyst, then snapped back down to actually look inside the Paladin. Blake barely had the chance to register the sight of Ruby grinning like she'd won the lottery when the remaining Knights began to pour through the hole Ruby had created in the airship's side, many of them singed, half-melted, or missing limbs entirely - likely from the shot the Paladin's smoking gun-arm had just fired.

A rain of ten-foot black feathers whistled into the breach, pinning one of the Knights like a bug on a cork board. Several stuck into the Paladin's armor as Ruby swung the cannon up, shielding Blake and punching buttons to get something that could take out a Grimm.

Red warnings splashed over the console as a white-hot beam of light flickered from the mouth of the cannon. The section of roof it hit turned black, then burst into flame and burned away to nothing despite being made of slate.

The controls were shot. A smoking, sparking mess of wires. The safety protocol screen near Ruby's shoulder gave a high-pitched whine and shattered, spilling glass into the hood of her cloak. Her hands were slick with sweat as she searched for a way to cut the beam off before the Dust crystal power core got overheated, because that would be bad.

Right then, the Knights pelted the suit with a bout of especially concentrated fire, managing to take out one of the Paladin's knees.

"Ack!" Ruby squeaked as the armored suit crumpled backwards, throwing her against her harness. The laser went wild, slicing through what was left of the cabin roof. It severed the tail from the crashed bulkhead. The Nevermore's screeches were drowned out by the groan of collapsing metal and wood.

Blake only just managed to leap clear of the toppling Paladin's shoulder, the tail end of her indestructible ribbon trailing fire from where it had passed through the laser. The Faunus rolled back up into a defensive stance just in time to catch Yang sprinting towards the fray she'd just barely escaped. Pieces of ceiling and shrapnel fell around them like the deadliest rain, but the brawler paused her rush long enough to grip Blake's arm, leaning close to be heard over the din of the collapsing roof, lips brushing the shell of Blake's Faunus ear with a hurried plea, "Get Weiss out of here."

Yang didn't even wait for Blake to nod before charging forward, sparks of yellow and red flying in every direction as she plowed straight into a knight fist-first, sending it flying into the laser beam still shooting through the now-nonexistent ceiling. Out of the corner of her eye, Yang saw a flicker of shadows, and breathed a quiet sigh of relief when a glance back at the porch revealed no Weiss, and no Blake. Just the case of dust - closed, no doubt thanks to her partner's keen eye - that disappeared moments later as the entire porch area was crushed beneath the airship's severed tail. On that note, Yang quickly stowed the crystal Weiss had handed her in one of her pouches, trusting the fireproof material to keep it safe.

Teeth bared in a wild grin, Yang whipped back around to face the group of Knights descending upon Ruby in the fallen Paladin. She crashed her fists together, letting a blast of white-hot fire erupt through the hollowed out cabin, transforming the wreckage into a burning, hellish inferno.

Now she didn't have to hold back.

Flames trailed in her wake as Yang shot forward, weaving around the bullets of the lone Knight that had turned to fire at her, catching it with a devastating left hook that knocked it back into one of its companions. A quick glance at the open sky lent an added bit of haste to her movements - the Nevermore was already circling back around for another assault.

"C'mon, sis!" the brawler called over the explosive crunch of her fist removing a second Knight's head from its shoulders, finally earning the attention of the other androids closest by. "You're not gonna let me have all the kills, are you?"

"Just hang on a sec," Ruby's voice rose an octave or two as she searched frantically for an off switch. The Paladin's cannon arm was starting to glow red hot. She yanked open a steel panel and ripped out a handful of wires. The beam flickered but didn't die. Something on the console started beeping in a bad way. A very bad way. Ruby paled and scrambled for Crescent Rose, cutting her way out of the safety harness and bolting out the gap in the suit's armor plating. She spotted Yang at once and hurtled into her, grabbing her arm and dragging her up the sloping pile of rubble, "Hurry, run!"

"Woah, hey! What's up?!" Yang glanced back over her shoulder as she scrambled after Ruby, eyes widening at the sight of the glowing, shuddering Paladin. The brawler pulled back the flames her semblance, reached into her pouch, and chucked the shining blue shard of Dust Weiss had given her right into the center of the knights.

"Hit the deck!" Time seemed to slow as Yang threw Ruby to the ground and dropped to cover her, flaring her semblance in perfect sync with the explosion that rocked the very ground beneath them, culminating in a searing wave of super-heated fire that spewed forth from what had once been the Paladin's core, incinerating anything in its path that wasn't metal or stone in the span of a split-second.

Time sped back up when the wall of fire met Yang's semblance in a violent swirling clash of reds, oranges, yellows, and whites. Yang's eyes glowed crimson at the sight of Ruby beneath her, immune to her own flames, but not to those threatening to close in around them, and she snarled, pushing herself to her very limits, liquid fire coursing through her veins as she just barely managed to deflect the foreign flames with her own aura-fueled blaze.

But just when she'd won her victory over the first explosion, a second, much clearer and sharper explosion tore through the area, sucking all the heat from the air as it took physical form in impossibly straight spires of the purest light blue, several of which exploded in bursts of steam upon coming too close to the burning brawler. The Knights didn't stand a chance. Any android that wasn't disintegrated by the first explosion suddenly finding itself encased in or speared by the elegant eruption of dust-born ice.

"Ugh," Yang flopped onto her back, pulling in deep breaths of chilled air, "Whoever said to fight fire with fire has _no_ idea what they're talking about."

"That was the _best_ ," Ruby propped herself up on her elbows, her face flushed and her hair all messed up. She stared up at the spires of ice. The sun hit it just right, glinting off the spikes and pieces of frozen Knights in a way that was distinctly beautiful. Especially since it meant that they weren't being shot at anymore. Abruptly, Ruby whipped around, looking for the others, "Blake? Weiss?! Where are you?"

There was no answer.

Yang rolled to her side and pushed herself into a sitting position, swiping wild tangles of blonde from her face as she scanned the area for a shock of black against the endless white. Soot and ashes from the Paladin's explosion littered the surrounding snow in a wide ring, broken only by the two hulking masses of slowly disintegrating Nevermore that had apparently been haphazardly bisected by the Paladin's laser. The miners still stood atop the roofs in the distance.

Finally, her eyes landed on a light trail atop the snow, leading away from the cabin and into the town. "I asked Blake to take Weiss somewhere safe," she glanced at Ruby, then pointed along the trail, noting that it seemed to lead straight towards the remains of the bell tower. "I think they went that way."

Ruby slumped backwards in relief. Driving a Paladin was great and all, but if it had gotten her team hurt she'd have never forgiven herself. "Okay. I guess we should go after them."

She still didn't want to move for a while after that explosion, but she pushed herself up anyway and started hunting around for something to skate over the surface of the snow on.

Yang stood as well, checking the areas opposite of her sister. "Ruby look," she tapped Ruby's shoulder, pointing to a snow drift at the very edge of the cabin's foundation.

The front half of their patchwork sled poked out of the snow, still a bit mangled, but far more in tact than the sled's other half lying a few feet away in bits and pieces, having apparently suffered a direct shot from the Paladin's laser. "It's our lucky day, sis!"

Ruby helped drag the half-sled out of the snow and dusted it off. Considering half of the rest of the wreckage that wasn't part of the giant ice sculpture was burning or in splinters or both, it looked pretty good. "Alright then. We'll regroup with Weiss and Blake and then see about scavenging whatever we can from around here."

She took another look around at the blasted, ice-encrusted rubble. Crestfallen, she amended, "... well, at least maybe we can find the rest of Weiss's Dust, or something. If we dig. For a long time."

* * *

 **A/N: I LOVE ROBOT FIGHTS but the cleanup is a nightmare. Tune in next time to see our team catalog exactly how many questions haven't been answered.**

 **Also we'll figure out where Blake took Weiss. Because, wow, good job, Blake. She was just /gone/.**

 **-Fiercesomest**


	27. Change of Base

**A/N: Quick shout out to our guest reviewer, Ruby chose d, who wrote**

 **"Your BFF is on the verge of death because the people she was trying to protect hurt her while she was already injured. Do you:**

 **a) Go into hiding and call for backup**  
 **b) Invite them to finish the job**  
 **c) Push her off a building**  
 **d) All of the above"**

 **We laughed because it was true.**

 **\- Fiercesomest**

* * *

The bell tower had seemed like the only logical option. The forest had Grimm. The clinic had miners. And the cabin, well... Blake tried not to think about the explosions - both of them. But now, as she stood just inside the top of the stairwell with an arm around Weiss, who was clinging to her with both arms around her neck, she was seriously beginning to doubt her choice.

Not only had she been forced carry Weiss while leaping across the icy spires jutting out of the tower's side to even get in to the place, everything was encased in ice, inside and out. The cold was unbearable, but Blake pressed on, taking extra care with her foot placement on the iced steps as they descended deeper into the tower. She was determined to find the one thing she knew held at least some form of heat.

"Weiss," Blake shifted the heiress into a bridal carry to better see her face, "Weiss, are you with me? Where did you leave Myrtenaster?"

The coatless heiress shivered, arms still partway around Blake's neck, "Where did _I_ leave it? Like I set it down on the other side of the room so I could pass out from blood loss?"

Amber eyes rolled. "Okay, so you left it where you collapsed." Blake ducked to avoid a low-hanging stalactite of ice as she continued her descent. They were nearing the bottom of the tower.

"Too bad it was blood you lost, and not that sour attitude," she quipped, biting back a shiver when Weiss's icy fingertips touched below her collar. "Although it looks like Yang was right," finally standing at the tower's ground floor - a veritable sea of ice - Blake's eyes flashed with mirth as she glanced down at the heiress pressing against her for some shred of warmth amidst the cold closing in on every side, "You really are surprisingly cuddly."

"Shut up. I'm practically in pajamas," Weiss really wished for the rest of her layers, or her coat, or an icicle to stab Blake with. But stabbing required effort. Maybe she would just poke Blake. Or stick it down the back of all of her collar. She really, really didn't want to lose her heat source, though, so she just huffed, clinging tighter, "As much as I appreciate the trip to recover my belongings, why are we not going someplace warm?"

"There really weren't many friendly options," the Faunus trailed off, her eyes traveling away from the snow drift spilling from the wide-open entrance over to the crystalline flower of ice where they'd found Weiss after the swarm... Blake stalked towards it, trying to halt the gruesome memories playing through her mind with another glance down at Weiss - clean, bandaged, still a bit cold, but above all, safe and healing. "Anyway, I was thinking we could make use of that red dust chamber."

"You want to stay here?" Weiss threw out the need for warmth and pushed away from Blake, arching her back and twisting to get loose and stand on her own.

The sudden movement caught Blake by surprise, throwing even her superior balance for a loop on the already slippery surface. Her foot slid just an inch too far forward, and flew out from underneath her, toppling the pair backwards. Blake instinctively curled herself around Weiss, Gambol Shroud biting into her back as she landed with a hard crack against the floor.

The Faunus let loose a pained growl, deep and gravelly, as if she could scare away the stars dancing in her vision from where the back of her head had met solid ice. "I won't have much choice if you knock me out..."

"You could have just put me down," Weiss growled back. She pushed herself up, halfway in Blake's arms, suppressing her shivers. Her tone softened, "Are you alright?"

"I will be once the room stops spinning," Blake mumbled, scrunching her eyes shut to keep the bell tower's spiraling stairs from actually spiraling. Keeping one arm around Weiss, she propped herself up on an elbow and shook her head.

"And for the record, I was only planning on staying long enough for Ruby and Yang to catch up." Because they were fine, and explosions or not, Blake refused to accept any other possibility.

Weiss heard her out in silence. She scowled at her hands, at the ashy snow. Her breath fogged in the air. "I'm sorry. I hate not being..." she closed her fists, avoiding Blake's gaze. "I'll be fine here for a minute if you still don't mind looking for Myrtenaster."

Blake tilted her head, amber eyes bright and clearly curious. Eventually, she rolled her eyes and smiled. "Of course," she sighed, very very gently butting heads with Weiss before gingerly setting her on the ice. She stood once she was free of her teammate's weight, making a beeline for the patch of ice that she could now see harbored a distinct glint of something silvery. "Let me know if you get too cold," she called over her shoulder.

"Just hurry up," Weiss sat hugging her knees close to her chest.

The wind moaned through the single narrow window not blocked by spires of ice. Even with daylight sneaking down from the upper floor and blue white light showing through the snow that had piled at the open double doors, the tower was shadowy. Spooky. The black smears of frozen Grimm trapped in the ice did _not_ help.

"Hurrying," Blake responded, already stepping through the roughly hewn opening that led into the icy cocoon, taking care not to slip on the frozen blood that still coated the ground within. It really wasn't much of a search at all - Myrtenaster was lying exactly where they'd left it, looking sad and abandoned. Just behind the blade, partially frozen into one of the walls of ice, was Weiss's thick white outer coat, soaked in red from where it touched the ground.

Gambol Shroud made quick work of the ice, and in less than a minute Blake was making her triumphant return to Weiss's side, the heiress's prized blade in one hand and her bloodstained coat in the other. Myrtenaster felt featherlight in her grip compared to Gambol Shroud, so it was no trouble for Blake to spin the rapier around one-handed to shift her hold to the blade's base. She offered Myrtenaster to its rightful owner, handle first.

"Heard you were looking for this."

"I told you that literally ten seconds ago," Weiss scoffed as she received her sword. It warmed to her hand, still shedding bits of frost. The bundle of mostly-white material under Blake's other hand caught her eye, "Is that my coat?" she set Mytrenaster aside and gave up trying to hide her shivers. Her lips were turning blue and her fingers were stiff with cold as she took the blood-stained garment and pulled it on, "Thank goodness, I was about to freeze. I didn't leave a pair of snow boots over there too, did I?"

"I didn't see any," Blake crossed her arms. "I suppose they might be buried even deeper in the ice somewhere. I could-" Blake stopped mid-offer, one Faunus ear twitching sideways, drawn to the distant sound of voices drifting through the sunbright snow blocking the front entrance. "Then again, you probably won't need them soon," she added before turning to leave, snow crunching beneath her feet as she came to stand before the entrance.

"Ruby! Yang! The door is over here!"

"INCOMING!" Ruby yelled as she blasted in through the snow blocked entrance on a scrap of Paladin armor she'd used as a makeshift snowboard.

She wiped out, tumbling into he snow and ice with Crescent Rose in a fit of laughter. Her red cloak wound up over her head, but didn't keep her from yelling as she tried to get her feet back under herself, "First place!" she wrestled her cloak back into submission, "Did you see that Nevermore? And me in the Paladin? That was so awesome! and Blake when you jumped off of hose flying Knights and-"

Ruby stopped dead.

"Did you get hit?" she practically dove to Weiss's side, silver eyes darting over the slick of frozen blood on her partner's coat. She tried to strip it off so she could stop the bleeding but in her panic she couldn't find the injury, "Weiss, where-what-"

"Let go of me, you dolt!" Weiss caught her ear and twisted to make her listen, "I'm fine. It's from before."

"Ow, yeah, okay," Ruby squeaked, releasing her grip on Weiss's coat in return for the freedom to rub her smarting ear.

Blake stepped closer to the pair, partially to place a hand on Ruby's shoulder in welcome, but mostly to avoid the screaming, barreling disaster that was her partner who shot through the snowdrift seconds later. Chunks of ice and probably stone flew from the impact of the brawler and her half-sled crashing headfirst through the spiked frozen surroundings and directly into the wall.

One of Blake's Faunus ears gave a nervous twitch when the shattered pile of ice didn't move immediately. "Yang?"

A muffled sound came from beneath the ice, and it began to shift. "Hey!" a blonde head of hair framing a bright smile finally emerged as Yang got to her feet, bits and pieces of ice cascading away from her like a frozen rock slide. She held a white snow boot in one hand. "There's a shoe over here! Oh," she paused to thrust her hand into the ice, pulling out its match. "Huh, make that shoes."

Weiss glanced at Blake and regarded the boots with disdain.

"Not mine," she fumbled with the zipper of her coat, her cold hands refusing to cooperate. Weiss colored a little, still shivering, when Ruby scooted over to help. She growled, "They're also not my style, but anything is better than frostbite."

"Yeah, guys, everyone okay?" Ruby shook snow from her hood, "Our cabin is kind of wrecked. We should scope out another home base. Are we good to move?"

Blake motioned for Yang to toss the boots over, catching them with ease. She quirked a brow at their bright pink rubber soles.

"I'm good to move." She knelt down beside Ruby and in front of Weiss, quickly slipping the boots onto the heiress's feet before she could protest more help. Yang had already bounded over to the group by the time she was done.

"I'm always good to move," the brawler flashed a tired smile, bending down to pull Weiss to her feet, one arm wrapped securely around her waist to hold her steady. Warmth radiated from her in soothing waves. "Weiss, how about you?" Yang grinned, "Need me to carry you~?"

The heiress clutched Yang's jacket cringing from the light-headedness that came with being made to stand up too fast. She powered through it, scowling, "Okay, firstly, stop dressing me when I'm perfectly capable of-"

"Maybe let's argue when we get there?" Ruby grimaced at having to interrupt Weiss, but it was creepy inside this tower what with the ice and the blood and the frozen Grimm. The wind moaned across the single open window, causing the hair to rise at the back of Ruby's neck.

They'd beaten the Nevermore and the knights, but they weren't exactly out of the woods yet.

* * *

The house across the street was a single story affair. Very cold and very empty. There were a couple of holes where the wall joined the roof, big enough for Ruby and crew to yell through and then wriggle in to search for survivors, but the smears of black and red in the poorly barricaded back room told the same story as the dozens of other ghost villages Huntsmen and Huntresses came across in their travels.

Snowy light filtered in from the hole in the eaves, illuminating the cluttered main room. The thick, dark rug was scattered with snow that had blown inside. Several musty and patched couches were crushed up in the corner near the fireplace. Miner's gear, frayed ropes and boots and broken picks waiting for repair, hung or were piled against the walls.

Ruby shut what was left of the door to the back room, her stomach a hard knot. "Okay. Let's patch that hole up and... and Yang, could we get a fire?"

"Uh," Yang snapped out of the slight daze she'd fallen into while staring around at the complete wreckage of what was probably once a living room - or had it been the lobby of a small workshop? It was beyond recognition either way, with the deep claw marks scoring every surface and the dulled crimson patterns spattering whatever surface could stain. When faced with such a vivid example of the destruction wrought by the Grimm, the brawler had to fight to keep the heat building beneath her skin in check, mindful of Weiss, who she still had pressed to her side after helping her through the hole near the ceiling.

"Yeah sure, no sweat," she managed to reply, her relaxed tone belied by the strained smile she flashed to Ruby before turning to call over her shoulder, "Blake, get in here, no one's following us."

A small grunt preceded a bit of snow being knocked to the floor as the Faunus in question poked her head through the opening, ears flat to match her slight pout. "It never hurts to be careful." Despite her disgruntled reply, she slipped through as requested, nimbly landing beside Weiss without a sound. Still, she kept one Faunus ear twisted, tracking the air outside.

The partnership shared a brief glance, Blake raising a brow at the subtle flick of Yang's eyes down to Weiss. She responded with a slight smile, but made no move to reach for the heiress, simply standing close by and at the ready should she be needed. The brawler shrugged, releasing Weiss from her grasp to stalk over and set to unblocking the half-blocked pit of the fireplace.

Weiss was pale and looked like she wanted to sleep for a month. She stumbled to the nearest couch without even inspecting its state of cleanliness and curled up facing the back cushions.

Ruby took a second to quietly assess her team. The adrenaline she'd had at the cabin had run out, leaving her feeling like she'd been bench-pressing that Paladin instead of piloting it. Patching up the hole near the roof could maybe wait. Especially since it was broad daylight and the opening was kind of their front door right now. She rubbed her aching arms. "Um... actually, Blake, want to come help me find something to eat?"

"Good call," Blake nodded, lacing her fingers together to serve as a step for Ruby to reach their Grimm-crafted exit. Her eyes darted in quick succession from Yang, to Weiss, then up to Ruby as she approached. "But... let's not go too far," she murmured, not incredibly keen on leaving their partners behind for a second time.

"I kind of meant come to the kitchen but..." Ruby took one glance through the low doorway at the crusted over, mostly empty cupboards and hunched her shoulders up. Apparently whoever had lived here subsisted on alcohol and canned blueberries. "Mayyyybe let's try next door. Any requests, guys?"

"No macaroni and cheese," Weiss said without opening her eyes.

"You know I'm good for whatever," Yang responded through clenched teeth as she set her jaw and pulled apart the couch blocking the fireplace to use as tinder.

Blake didn't particularly like the obvious glance Yang stole at the cabinets filled with assorted liquors, but she kept any chiding remarks to herself. "So, anything that isn't macaroni and cheese," she surmised, "Simple enough. We'll be back then."

At those words, Yang finally glanced back at Blake and Ruby, fixing them with a weary smile, "Yeah all right, just don't go disappearing into another snowstorm this time, 'kay? I can only handle so much anxiety in one lifetime."

Amber eyes rolled, pausing half-way to fixate on the smoking piece of couch Yang was white-knuckling in the hand that wasn't melodramatically pressed over her heart. "Sure. Just try not to burn the house down while we're gone."

Yang traced Blake's line of sight to the chunk of wood catching fire in her hand. She hid it behind herself with a sheepish grin. "Right. Just, be careful?"

"I do believe the Ruby Rose forecast calls for sun, cold winds, and juuuust a touch of debilitating fear for any and all Grimm nearby," Ruby hefted Crescent Rose to her shoulder, cheerful as could be. A glance at the small entrance near the ceiling, and she had second thoughts, collapsing her giant scythe down and stowing it at her belt. Still, Yang looked really worried. Ruby stood up under the fatigue of fighting robots well, though, and still had enough energy to shoot her big sis a mock salute, "Just yell if you need us."

Yang's grin brightened, and she wholeheartedly returned the salute, "Roger that!"

Sporting a small smirk, Blake eyed the opening in the ceiling that led outside, silently daring the skies to defy their fearless team leader.

* * *

 **A/N: Also, holy smokes, I just started the school year AND moved into a new apartment. I'm blitzed. This isn't even Tuesday. Did we post a chapter last week...? Who knows.**

 **More chapters ahead, though, folks!**

 **\- Fiercesomest**


	28. No More Waiting

**A/N: Nice long chapter for you guys! Well, long anyway. Good luck!**

 **\- Fiercesomest**

* * *

The skies behaved beautifully. The wind finally died down, leaving the weather crisp and still, and while it was still a bit too cold overall for Blake's liking, warm rays of sunlight poured down on to the rooftops, offering a slight bit of reprieve from the chill in the air. It also turned the shingles buried beneath their feet into slippery slushpiles.

It also didn't actually help cast all that much light into the shredded center of the neighbor's roofing, which is why Blake silently dropped in first to make a quick scan of the area. The hole landed her in a living room of sorts, shredded, as was the usual at this point, but with a disconcerting amount of broken glass and snow scattering the floor. This house hadn't had shutters.

"Ruby, there's-" Blake's black velvet ears swiveled at the low growl that sounded from right behind her. She whirled around, Gambol Shroud ready to sever a Grimm into pieces. "...There's a dog." The huge canine was snarling, ears flat, and though one of its eyes had been gouged out, its fur was matted with far too much blood to have just been its own. Blakes own ears flattened when she realized it was guarding a pile of snow with a hand sticking out of it.

Ruby's boots hit the rug with a solid thump next to Blake, and she stood up ready for action. Her silver eyes adjusted to the dimness and she spotted the dog.

"Okay, whoa," she put an arm out in front of Blake, backing up slowly. Then she saw the hand. Her throat closed up for a second. She crouched a little lower and held out her open palm as if offering the dog a treat, "Hey there, poor guy... hey... we're not going to hurt you."

The younger girl's words were soft and soothing, but the dog's disposition seemed unchanged, head low, hackles raised, its lone eye flashing dangerously, as if daring either huntress to make one single move.

Blake frowned at the reddish tint to the dog's remaining eye, finding it far too close in hue to the crimson staining its formerly white coat. Captivated by that eye, surrounded by nothing but the sound of growling, there was no way for Blake to stop the buried fragments of her past from clawing their way back to the surface.

A protest thrown into chaos. The voices of the Faunus drowned out by ear-splitting barking and howling. Bloodthirsty eyes tracking her every desperate twist and turn through the streets. Ravenous growls relentlessly chasing her down the back alleys until she could run no further.

Blake tore her gaze from the dog. She didn't want to remember any more.

Forcing her focus back to the present, she cast a furtive glance at her young team leader, taking note of Ruby's relaxed posture and trying her best to emulate it, even against all of her natural instincts telling her to flee. Just as she managed to loosen herself up a bit, every ounce of tension snapped back into her limbs tenfold at the sound of the dog's growl hitching suddenly, the harsh sound chopping into ruthless dry heaving.

Eye wide and bulging, the dog's entire body shuddered, lurching with each sluggish breath it managed to drag in between hideously wet, hacking coughs. Dark sludge dripped from its empty eye socket and its jaws, pooling on the ground between its front paws.

Ruby crouched on the rug. Her chest felt tight, but she just watched, waiting for the dog to finish.

Blake however, grabbed the edge of Ruby's hood and gently pulled her back, amber eyes hard as she stepped in front of her leader, throwing an arm out to both shield and hold her back. She had seen a dark oily substance like this only once before, and that experience had ended with both Yang and herself nearly becoming Grimm. No living thing deserved such a horrible fate, and while she wasn't completely certain if this was the same, it felt too similar to be taking any chances.

With a great hacking cough, the dog choked up something solid, broken chunks of stark-white bone laced with clear telltale patterns of red clattering to the hard wood floor, earning an incredulous look from Blake. Had this thing eaten a Grimm? What would ingesting darkness incarnate even do to an animal? Cold determination steadying her aim, Blake pointed Gambol Shroud's pistol squarely at the dog's contorted face, watching its lone eye flicker between blood red and chocolate brown, her Faunus ears standing on high alert when it tried to take a shaking step forward.

Her finger tightened around the trigger. "Ruby," she whispered, just loud enough to be heard over the dog's hiccuped whimpers echoing through the gutted house, "Don't look."

"No, wait," Ruby was pale. The oily junk and the flickering red in the dog's eyes reminded her of that time too. The dream where she wore a mask of bone. She kept a hand on Blake's arm, "Let me try something."

Blake's scowl remained, but she forced herself to keep from firing when the dog lurched forward another step, lowering its head so far its nose practically dragged across the floor. "...Is that an order?"

"Just wait," Ruby unclasped her cloak, folding it a couple of times so she had a thick sheet the size of a bath towel. She faced the advancing dog. It looked like it was in so much pain. Pain caused by whatever the Grimm had done to it. Maybe if she could clear the darkness out... it was a long shot, but Ruby set her jaw, snow crunching under the soles of her boots as she braced, waiting for the dog's next move.

Stifling a growl of her own, Blake stepped aside, moving her arm from Ruby's path to double up her grip on Gambol Shroud. She kept her sights trained on the dog, but shifted her aim to its chest as it shuffled right up to Ruby and pressed its head into the younger girl's legs, teeth gnashing wildly, but never actually going for an outright attack. At least not yet. "Ruby," Blake hissed in alarm, forced to simply watch as the dog's movements became more erratic.

"Shh, shh, shhh..." Ruby wrapped her cloaked hands around the dog's sticky leather collar, maneuvering so the fabric was between her legs and the animal's teeth. She gave it a soft nervous laugh, "Not really sure if this is going to suck for you..."

Her aura flickered to life. Of course, Ruby had no idea if you could aura-heal a dog. But it was a dog, and it was hurting. She had to try, right? So she held on tight and focused, trying to chase out whatever poisons had gotten into it.

Blake watched, wide-eyed and wary as the reddish outline of Ruby's aura flared, trailing down to encompass the dog in her arms. Her ears flattened at the instant onslaught of frantic yips and cries tearing from the thrashing animal the second that reaching aura touched its nose.

The dog writhed and flailed, pulling back as hard as it could against Ruby's grip, but sizable as it was, it probably only weighed about half as much as Crescent Rose, and no amount of scrabbling against the slippery hardwood flooring could help it escape. Darkness poured from its mouth at an alarming rate, like a faucet being turned full blast, matched only by the sheer amount streaming from its eye socket, but rather than pooling on the ground, the sludge began to dry mid-fall, sifting away into a fine ash.

With one last shuddering heave, the dog hacked up something solid that hit the ground with a heavy thunk, but before Blake could get a good look at it, that too sifted away into ash. Finally, with only the tiniest wisps of sludge remaining in its teeth, the dog's writhing slowed and ultimately ceased, its paws sliding bonelessly against the snowy hardwood as it slumped to the floor at Ruby's feet, panting too heavily to even bother whining.

Wordlessly, Blake withdrew Gambol Shroud.

Ruby kept her hold on the dog's collar for another few seconds. The light of her aura faded, but her eyes were sharp, watching for anything crazy. She sank down to her knees, as the wave of fatigue caught up to her. Purging gunk out of one-eyed dogs really took it out of you.

But her aura was nothing if not resilient. She pulled back one side of her cloak to check on her field patient.

Blake came closer to look as well, ears half-flattened as she placed a hand on Ruby's shoulder and peered over her at the dog she'd nearly shot.

The dog blinked, exhaustion clear in its deep brown eye as it glanced between the two huntresses hovering over it, finally focusing on Ruby. It took in a deep breath, let out a huge snorting sigh, and made a sluggish attempt to lick Ruby's arm.

Its tail thumped weakly against the snow.

* * *

A low growl echoed through team RWBY's newest home base.

"Shut up," Yang whispered to herself, placing a hand over her own stomach to stifle the sound, "you'll wake the princess."

The brawler cast a hasty glance down at Weiss, who was, thankfully, still asleep. Breathing a sigh of relief, Yang leaned back against the couch, stared up at the ceiling, and sighed again, listening intently for any sounds over the crackle of the roaring fire she'd built. Ruby and Blake needed to come back soon, not only because she was hungry and wanted to see them safe, but because she wanted eye witnesses. Reliable corroboration that Weiss had indeed inched closer and closer until she had reached her current position, practically using her lap as a pillow.

For being so standoffish when she was awake, Weiss certainly seemed drawn to warmth when she was asleep... Still, just to be on the safe side Yang kept her hands to herself, resting her arms along the back of the couch, lest she wake the (admittedly adorable) slumbering beast and suffer a bombardment of slanderous accusations.

The resounding clunk of shoes hitting the floor brought Yang's attention right back to the opposite wall.

Of all the things Yang expected to see, Blake holding a giant dog was not exactly high on the list. She couldn't even manage a 'welcome back!' for the initial shock.

"We brought food."

Yang stared. "Uhhhh, Blake? That's a dog."

Blake set the dog down, and they both watched it wobble on its legs for a moment before sitting on its haunches.

"We also... brought a dog..." Blake's attempt at a witty comeback petered out as she finally seemed to register the sight of Weiss laying with her head in Yang's lap. She arched an eyebrow at her partner, Yang immediately responding by throwing up both hands in a gesture that screamed 'wasn't me!'.

Ruby slipped in through the opening next, struggling with the salvaged pack on her shoulder.

"Mission success!" she announced, totally oblivious to her sleeping partner as she spilled the whole bag full of canned goods onto a broken down couch missing its cushions. "And did you meet Drei?" she hopped over to the dog and scratched his ears. "Isn't he great?"

Weiss groaned, shifting in Yang's lap.

"Could you not talk at the top of your-" her eyes met Yang's and she bolted up, sputtering and clutching her coat about her shoulders, "Honestly, what is it with you and personal space?!"

"I could ask you the same, sleeping beauty," Yang shook her head, getting to her feet and brushing off her legs, "I mean what am I supposed to do when you keep throwing yourself at me, huh?" She winked at the heiress, turning and jogging away to investigate their new four-legged friend before she could get yelled at again.

"Look at this big guy~!" Yang exclaimed, finding herself about eye-level with the canine when she knelt down to get a better look. "Awww, aw he's so cute and... wow kind of roughed up," the brawler's voice dipped in concern. She slowly reached out and ran a thumb over the dog's brow, noting with a smile how patiently he endured her careful examination of his wound.

"Yeah, he kind of ate some Grimm, so..." Ruby buried her hands in the dog's thick fur, "Oh! I brought food for him too, and there's more next door if we need it."

"Ohhh, so he's a guard dog huh? That's a plus," Yang ran her hands across the dog's back and sides, taking note of the places he winced when she touched. Her hands came away black and red. "Yeah we should probably give this guy a bath," she called to Blake.

Blake's ear swiveled to face Yang, followed closely by her whole head, which tilted in confusion as she paused in her self-appointed task of sorting out the cans of food Ruby had dumped into the cushionless couch. "We?"

"I mean, you can do it yourself if you really want to-"

"I am not washing a dog."

"Aw, you're no fun, Blakey," Yang shrugged, taking the dog's collar in hand and getting back to her feet. "Well, come on then Drei, looks like it's just you and me."

Drei yawned as he stood and allowed himself to be led away.

Weiss humphed, arms crossed on her couch by the fire, while her icy blue eyes darted around, taking in the surroundings now that she was better rested, "Does this place even have a bathroom? There's no way the pipes aren't frozen."

"Ahaha..." Ruby rubbed the back of her neck, remembering the time back home when Yang had tried to thaw out pipes halfway to town so she could take a shower. That... wouldn't be as easy with everything under twenty feet of snow. "We'll figure it out. In the meantime, let's eat. Unless you like your corn and baked beans warm, in which case..."

She set the cans up on the stone hearth one at a time so they could get warmed up.

Blake disappeared into the kitchen, reemerging a few minutes later with spoons, a bowl, a can opener, and a can. She settled down next to Ruby, right in front of the hearth, to soak up as much warmth as she could. The bowl she set aside for the dog, the spoons she handed to Ruby, and the can opener she immediately put to work, opening up the prized can of tuna she'd found.

A thousand thoughts and questions circled in her mind as the can circled in her hands. The clinic. The miners. The Liliac. The fleet of hostile Atlesian androids on a Beacon airship. The black sludge. Blake's Faunus ears drooped under the weight of trying to process it all. She looked to her teammates for reprieve, finding Ruby staring into the fire, and Weiss glaring about the room. Amber eyes flicked from the heiress, to the can of tuna, then back again. Fish ranked incredibly high on the scale of good things to eat after suffering blood loss... "Weiss," Blake held the can up, "would you like some?"

Weiss didn't like tuna that much, but given the monotonous theme of the rest of the canned supply and the enormity of Blake's kindness in offering to share, she couldn't exactly pass it up, "That's very generous of you, Blake."

Ruby used the can opener to punch holes in the tops of the couple of cans near the fire so they wouldn't explode when they heated up. Now that the rest of her adrenalin had burned off, she was tired. Not too tired to think over what had happened back at the cabin, though.

At first she tried to convince herself that it was possible that all the Knights and the Paladin had malfunctioned in the same way, at the same time, but that seemed crazy. If it wasn't a malfunction, though... well, she didn't know what to make of it. Maybe Beacon had figured they'd gotten overrun and had sent the Knights in as a cleanup crew, to wipe out whatever Grimm were left? Maybe it was some kind of training deal? Did every second-year away mission team get a ship full of angry bots to fight off? Maybe it was a group of rogue, pirate robots, and they'd hijacked Chuck's ship and come here to set up their super secret pirate base? Ooh, maybe there'd been a robot takeover, and they'd homed in on their non-working scrolls and were trying to wipe out all of humanity! Or what if they'd joined forces with the Grimm? One little glitch in the programming (well, maybe a big glitch) and they'd joined the enemy.

"Guys," Ruby set the can opener down and scooted to sit cross-legged so she could see both Blake and Weiss in the firelight, "if this is the start of a robot-Grimm apocalypse, I just want you to know that you're the best team ever."

"Seconded." Blake nodded, not really understanding where Ruby had come up with her wild ideas, but agreeing with the sentiment nonetheless. Brows furrowed, she caught Weiss's eye as she handed over her tuna. "But... none of this makes any sense. Since when did Beacon start calling in the Atlesian military to run cleanup for a wayward field mission? Especially ones that go berserk when you even mention Beacon in the first place."

Weiss paused, a spoon tipped with a tiny bit of tuna halfway to her mouth, "Wait, what?"

"Weren't they flipping out the whole time?" Ruby braced her hands on her ankles, brow furrowed.

"Not at first..." Blake's ears flattened a bit as she crossed her arms. "The pilot - it was a Knight - asked me to identify myself. It didnt start shooting until I mentioned Beacon..." She bit her lip, glancing between her teammates. "It was really damaged though," she offered quietly, not incredibly fond of the potential implications of the sudden attack being anything other than a malfunction.

Ruby and Weiss exchanged a glance. Ruby leaned forward a little, "We have to get back to Beacon."

"And leave James Point unprotected?" Weiss lowered the can and spoon to her lap, blue eyes hard in the firelight, "Not that we've done a spectacular job of defending it."

"That's the point," Blake retorted. "We're not equipped to handle what's here, and they don't want us around anyway, so I'm with Ruby on this one, we should go back."

"Woah, what's this about going places?"

Blake looked back to see Yang and a much cleaner version of Drei round the corner from the hall, the latter of which trotted over to sit beside Ruby. The Faunus stared in awe at the relative lack of blood and soot that had once marred the dog's coat.

"How did you..."

"Eh, there was a window, so I grabbed some snow and - but no really, 'go back'? Like to the clinic?"

"To Beacon. We'll let the townsfolk know we're going for help," Ruby drooped, hating the idea of leaving the villagers and the kids without much in the way of defenses. The miners were around, and they probably had some kind of defensive strategy. Hopefully it would be enough. "Blake… you're right. If half of everyone is going to fight us instead of letting us help, well…" she rubbed the back of her neck. "Maybe we can talk to the miners and see if we can do anything to fix up their defenses before we go."

"So, going for help sounds great and all," Yang strode over to join the rest of the team near the fire, the couch creaking beneath her as she slouched down beside Weiss, "but how are we planning on getting back? By foot? Over a mountain range? That could take days, weeks even, and the way those miners flail around, there'd be no one left to rescue by the time we got back. Not to mention Weiss doesn't exactly seem travel-worthy just yet. No offense," she smiled and nudged the heiress's knee with her own.

"Which is why you and Weiss should stay behind."

"Blake." Yang's smile vanished. "Please tell me you're joking," the brawler straightened up, finding nothing but hard resolve in her partner's eyes. She looked to Ruby for support just as Blake did the same.

"Ruby, you and I are built for speed, and I'm well-versed in survival outside the kingdoms," Blake uncrossed her arms, resting her hands on her knees as she addressed her team leader, "With just the two of us, we could make the trip in half the time. And... Yang has a point too, the townspeople are going to need some kind of fallback plan when the miners eventually fail against the next swarm." Blake's ears flattened at the thought of untrained fighters trying to take on any kind of Grimm, let alone a swarm so great in number it had blackened the sky.

"Yang and Weiss could be that fallback," the Faunus chanced a glance at her partner, only the tiniest flick of an ear telling of her internal flinch at the fierce scowl the brawler wore at having her points hijacked to counter her own argument, "a way to ensure that... that we'll find more than just corpses when we return."

"Hold on a second," Weiss said from her perch at the far end of the couch where she'd moved to put as much space between herself and Yang as possible. "Yang told everyone that she single-handedly caused the attack. They hated me before I even came. While I'm not entirely against splitting up, I propose we don't leave only those most likely to be dragged out and burned at the stake by the local riffraff."

"No. No splitting up," Ruby picked bits of bark from the stack of firewood out of the carpet and tossed them into the fire. "We're a team."

A tense silence fell over the team at Ruby's statement, broken only when Blake eventually stood, head held high but ears half flattened.

"I could go alone. The town isn't incredibly fond of me either, but they're all fans of Ruby, so if I-"

"Blake."

The Faunus in question's ears perked in surprise when Yang grabbed her arm and yanked her down to sit on the couch in the space Weiss had opened up between them. The brawler threw an arm around her partner, pulling her close. "Don't even think for one second we'd let you go it alone. Ruby's right, we're a team."

Blake resisted for all of a few seconds before eventually relaxing into the ironclad hold. "But, none of these options sound good," she protested, frustration flattening her ears flush against her hair.

"Please," Weiss huffed at Blake, grudgingly accepting that she would never have personal space until she fully recovered, "I'd expect you of all people to realize life can't be all sun and snowflakes. There are no good options. Sometimes you simply have to choose the least terrible course of action."

Before Weiss could inform the team of her opinion on what the least terrible course was, Ruby perked up and broke in, "Or we could make up a new one."

Blake was too busy scowling at Weiss to comment, but Yang perked up in kind. "Yeah, new sounds great," the brawler pulled a bit of her hair over her shoulder and fidgeted with the tangled strands of gold, "You got something in mind?"

"Taking them with us?" Ruby grimaced.

"What?" Weiss screwed up her face in disgust.

"Okay, but wait," Ruby held up her hand, counting off reasons, "The Grimm won't leave this place alone. I mean, I was just thinking about Mountain Glenn. Grimm are attracted to bad feelings, and well, this has been... pretty close to Mountain Glenn badness. And if they're with us, we can protect them, right? Maybe if we just get them to the next town over they'd be okay for a while?"

"That's... uh..." Yang looked to Blake, conflicted.

"That's a terrible idea."

"Blake!"

The Faunus raised her hand as well, listing rapid-fire counterpoints "A large group will slow us immensely, not to mention the sick an elderly, and mountainous terrain will put us out in the open, no cover, sitting ducks for any packs of Grimm that track the despair trailing an entire population forced to abandon its town, not to mention the-"

"Blake," Yang reached out to take her partner's hand, amethyst eyes silently begging for a cease fire. "So, we should probably sleep on this." She addressed the team as a whole, "You know, get some rest and come at this fresh tomorrow. No sense making a decision this big when we're all frazzled from that robo-Grimm surprise attack, right?"

Ruby looked at Blake, and then down at her combat boots, her face hot with shame. She just wanted to help people, and yeah, packing up the whole town... well… She stuck the log she'd been picking at in the fire. It really was a stupid idea. Still, her hands braced on her boots. They couldn't just leave all those people.

"Anyone else think that we might want to seal up that hole before nightfall?" Weiss nodded up to the round hole in the wall as she handed Blake the can of tuna. She crossed her arms and snuggled down between her teammate and the arm of the couch. "Not that this place would be particularly safe in the event of another 'bat storm', but still."

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm on it," Yang's arms slipped from around Blake as she stood to search the house for anything that could board up the gaping hole that was now letting in an unpleasant draft.

Blake stared down at her can of tuna, not even paying attention as the dog stole Yang's position on the couch and curled up beside her. She gripped the edges of the can, frowning. She'd lost her appetite.

* * *

Low crackling firelight cast a warm glow over the darkened interior of team RWBY's newest stopgap residence, bright enough to be a comfort in the dead of night, but still dim enough to be easy on the narrowed amber eyes watching every twist, turn, rise, and fall of the flickering flames. Even laying right in front of the hearth, blanketed by the fire's relaxing warmth, Blake couldn't fall back asleep, her physical exhaustion no match for the tight coil of anxiety winding through her chest, keeping her thoughts running a mile a minute.

Dinner and the rest of the evening had been awkward and stiff. Everything since their brief team discussion had been awkward and stiff, and even though Blake knew the tension weighing everyone down was her doing, she had no idea how to fix it.

At least Yang and Ruby had fixed up the gaping opening near the ceiling. The younger of the two ended up crafting an ingenious actual working door with a latch, made out of some repurposed hinges and parts from the house's interior doors using the power tools Yang had found in the basement.

No one asked when the brawler had come up from the basement ashen faced, quietly locking the door behind her. The fresh coating of dull brownish red her boots were tracking through the kitchen was all the explanation anyone needed.

Blake shook the image from her head, casting an envious glance at Ruby and Weiss sleeping peacefully curled up on the couch with Drei nestled between them. That dog had been following Ruby around like a familiar since she'd rescued it. It had even sat outside with her while she kept first watch. Yang was keeping watch now. Blake's turn would be soon.

Resigned to at least make some use of her wakeful state, Blake rolled over and got to her feet, picking up Gambol Shroud on her way to the "front door." She slipped outside without a sound.

Yang was easy to spot, reclining near the middle of the roof, practically silhouetted against the moon. Blake frowned a bit at the whiskey bottle sitting beside her.

Though the Faunus kept her footsteps soft, a master of stealth in action, Yang didn't seem startled when she appeared beside her.

"Hey partner," the brawler spoke first, breaking the brief silence. She shifted a bit to look up at Blake. "What are you doing up?"

"What are you doing drinking?" Blake retorted, moving to the side of Yang that was not occupied by hard liquor and sitting so close she was practically on top of the brawler.

"Keeps me relaxed," came the easy reply. In truth, she'd had little more than a couple of sips. She knew better than to stray down the path of her uncle Qrow, who had first introduced her to the stuff. Moonlight caught in the scratches and scuffs littering Ember Celica's fully extended form as the brawler held her shot glass out to Blake. "You want some? It'll warm you up," she winked.

Blake's ears flattened, but she otherwise ignored the jab at her weakness to the cold. "No. That stuff tastes like jet fuel."

"Uh, have you tasted jet fuel?"

"Yes."

"... Huh." Yang filed that little tidbit away in her ever-growing list of things to ask Blake about when not in mortal peril as she stared at the half-filled glass in her hands. She took another sip, cringing to withstand the acrid flavor, but thoroughly enjoying the burn that traveled down her throat. "Well, good to know I could drink jet fuel in a pinch."

"Pretty sure that would still kill you. How many of those have you had?"

Yang shrugged, matching the smirk gracing Blake's features with one of her own as she refilled her shot glass, took an even smaller sip, and slipped her free arm around her partner's shoulders. Blake finally felt herself start to relax into the familiar hold, relishing in the fiery blonde's natural warmth, content to slowly sweep her gaze across their surroundings. The snow had melted and refrozen enough to form an almost icy surface atop the snowdrifts, perfect for reflecting the muted lights shining down from the night sky. The town was just barely beginning to thaw.

While Blake surveyed the horizon, Yang's attention had strayed skyward.

"Do you ever wonder if the moon is in pain?"

The sudden question drew Blake's attention to the shattered moon as well, and after a moment of contemplation she glanced sideways at Yang. "Are you drunk?"

Yang feigned hurt. "Hey, I could be thinking really deep existential thoughts over here!"

Blake arched a brow.

Before long Yang cracked a sad smile. "No, I'm not... but I almost wish I was." Stretching her legs out in front of her, she flared her semblance just enough to combat the icy breeze that had picked up around them. She squeezed Blake's shoulders, "Are you okay? You're normally halfway to dreamland by now."

A sigh slipped from Blake as she pulled her knees to her chest. "I'm..." fine would be a lie. Any descriptor she used would be a lie, because she had no idea how to describe how she felt. The unfinished sentence hung in the air, uniting the partnership in their shared desire to avoid its completion. They sat together in silence, giving Blake ample time to sort herself out.

There were a few times when Blake thought the other girl was about to leave, but each time Yang was either stretching, twisting her glass in the slush, fiddling with her golden curls, or shifting so she could better run idle fingertips up and down Blake's arm. Even when the stars began to give way to the sun's rays climbing up the backs of the mountains, signaling they were already well into Blake's watch, Yang stayed.

Blake almost wished she hadn't, as it was going to make what she had decided to do that much harder.

"Yang." She spoke low and softly, earning a small hum of acknowledgement in return. "I'm leaving."

She could have meant she was going back downstairs. She could have meant she was going to find more supplies. She could have meant any number of things with such a vague sentence, but the understanding that flickered in her partner's eyes was clear.

Blake braced herself, expecting anger, shouting, a flash of crimson irises, honestly any kind of resistance, but the look Yang eventually gave her was one of calculated resignation - as if she'd been expecting this. It shocked her long enough for Yang to interrupt and completely derail the detailed speech she'd planned out.

"Nothing I say is going to stop you, is it?"

Blake shook her head.

Yang frowned, setting down her empty glass and pulling away from their customary side-hug to properly face her partner. "Will you at least tell me why?"

Blake regarded the other girl for a long while, wondering at how easy it would be to just make a break for it right then and there. She couldn't bring herself to do it, though. Yang deserved more than that.

It took a little longer than she would have liked to compose her thoughts, but Yang was patient, leaning forward a bit when Blake finally spoke. "After the White Fang began to turn, there were never any good choices left." The Faunus glared daggers at the horizon. Despite the greater good their actions were supposed to be bringing about, it seemed like every option fate afforded them resulted in innocent lives being harmed or lost entirely. How many had she been responsible for?

"I thought being a huntress would be different," she continued, crossing her arms. "I thought it would be... straightforward. That there would always be an obvious right choice to make." Blake sighed, pushing herself to her feet and brushing off her legs. "But it's not. If I leave on my own terms, whatever happens, Ruby won't have to take the fall. She won't be forced into choosing between nothing but terrible decisions and won't have to see... what the world's really like."

Yang stood as well, hints of fatigue telling in the heavy swing of her arm as she placed a gentle hand on Blake's shoulder. "You can't protect her forever."

Blake's brows lifted, but she held her ground. "Says the pot to the kettle."

They shared a quiet stare down, the Faunus refusing to budge an inch even though the battle felt impossibly one-sided as the brawler seemed to look straight through her despite remaining utterly unreadable herself.

When Yang finally drew back with a sigh, Blake let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding.

"Well, we should get going then." Yang placed her hands on her hips, twisting a bit to stretch out her back.

Blake did a double take. "Excuse me?"

"What," she stretched her arms next, "Did you seriously think I'd let you go it alone?"

"As a matter of fact, yes."

"Don't be stupid, Blake," Yang grabbed Blake's hands in both of her own, an edge of desperation in the strength of her grip, "Each one of us was assigned a partner for a reason. Someone's gotta watch your back."

Blake pulled back, pleasantly surprised at the offer for company, but wary of the fact that despite the smile her partner wore, she still wasn't able to read Yang's expression. "What about Ruby?"

"She'll be fine. She has Weiss."

Blake wondered at the sadness tinging Yang's voice. "But what if-"

"Blake," it was only for a split second, but Yang's smile faltered, eyes dropping to their joined hands. "...I'm tired of being left behind."

It was spoken barely above a whisper, but to Blake's Faunus ears the words were clear as day. Her questions ended right then and there, and she pulled the brawler in for a fierce hug. As soon as Yang stopped shaking, they would leave.

She only hoped Ruby and Weiss would forgive them.


	29. Show Time

**A/N: HEY AGAIN. It's good to be back oh gosh. Sorry we kind of let this one slide for a little while, but now that Season 4 is over, we're going to be posting this bad boy on Saturdays to keep that from happening again. Also um, they've got me on overtime at work so the chapters might be a little shorter than usual so please bear with us ;-;**

 **HUGS,**  
 **D**

* * *

Night fell, creeping darkness blanketing the valley in one fell swoop as the sun disappeared behind jagged mountaintops silhouetted in a gold-lined featureless black. Whatever warmth Blake had built up from the day's hike fled alongside the light, leaving her breath to rise in intermittent puffs of white.

The northern outskirts of Vale never quite reached the frigid lows she'd experienced during her missions in Atlas, but the ceaseless valley winds were starting to make Blake's Faunus ears ache. Winds that were excellent at keeping any Liliac-hiding cloud formations at bay, but also winds that cut straight through even her fleece-lined jacket, allowing a persistent chill to creep into her extremities.

The cold would never reach her core though - not through the solid heat source resting against her back. Blake pulled her eyes from scanning the moonlit horizon to spare a glance behind her at the bowed blonde head of her partner. Even while sleeping the brawler's hair seemed to emit a low glow, highlighting their small den-for-a-night of toppled tree roots with soft oranges and golds.

For a quiet moment, Blake was content to watch her partner's chest rise and fall in sleep. At least, she was either fast asleep or an expert at faking. The lack of Yang's usual nightly snoring and squirming about raised Blake's suspicions, but she still sincerely hoped it was simply a case of well-practiced field training rather than a case of insomnia.

Spirited as she'd tried to act, the dark bags Blake had seen beneath those usually-bright pools of amethyst made it exceedingly clear that Yang was feeling the effects of having been on watch that very same morning. As such, Blake had immediately claimed first watch, despite the dull bone-tired ache coursing through her every muscle, courtesy of the day's hike.

At the start, she actually had to hold herself back a bit, her own sheer speed and fluidity through forested terrain nearly leaving Yang in the dust. Towards the end of each day though, Yang's stamina tended to win out, the brawler still going strong when Blake finally began to flag. Exhaustion set in just before sunset, the hard pace they'd kept leading them straight to the shallow banks of the river they planned on following for the coming days - the coming weeks.

One month. That was the rough estimation they'd managed for how long it would take them to get back to Beacon on foot - and that was without any room for variation. In all likelihood, between the mountainous terrain, any time spent hunting for food, and the chance of skirmishes with roaming Grimm, it could take them up to twice that long. Yang had nearly turned right back around once they'd calculated out their final numbers, and yet, when compared to the years it took for Beacon's teams of research hunters to investigate towns suspected to have been irrecoverably overrun by Grimm, it was, sadly, still the faster option in the end.

For such a long trip, food was an especially tricky problem, and the more Blake thought about it, the more she regretted making this journey without the aid of Ruby's sniping capabilities. While Yang was perfect for cooking whatever they caught, as making fire was now literally a snap, catching things in the first place was trouble. It didn't help that they'd gone the entire day without seeing a scrap of wildlife larger than a songbird. Fortunately, the river they were following was filled with unsuspecting fish that found themselves bodily flung from their peaceful abode when a particularly famished brawler leaped and slammed flaming-fist-first into the water's surface, resulting in dinner literally exploding into the sky and raining down on the riverbanks, confused and helplessly flopping around.

It had been flashy, literally, Blake would give her partner that, but it would have at least been a little easier if they'd brought some supplies along from the town. Granted, they had no real way to carry any decent amount, and what small amount they could carry, Yang had insisted that they drop at the clinic.

That had been a strange visit. Blake still had no idea what exactly Yang had done after slipping inside the clinic's poorly-repaired window with both arms filled with canned goods – the Faunus had opted to keep watch a few feet away from the roof, scanning the surrounding icy surface for any stray miners that might have been looking to start trouble. She had even less idea why Curtis then appeared at the window with Yang, exchanging hushed words too quiet for even Blake's Faunus ears to hear. He didn't even try to follow. He just quietly watched them leave...

A frigid breeze played through the trees, cutting through Blake's thoughts. The crisp rustling leaves made it difficult for her to focus on the distant patter of footfalls she'd just picked up on.

Beowolves - an entire pack by the sound of it - and judging by the direction, making a beeline for the town. Blake shivered. Her ears perked when she felt the warmth against her back crank up in intensity.

Sure enough, Yang was still awake. Blake hunkered down a bit more against Yang, wishing dearly that she could simply drape her partner around herself like some kind of human-space-heater-blanket. "Sleep," she whispered over her shoulder, smiling at the low affirmative hum she got in response.

That smile vanished when a long, mournful howl echoed out over the forest, distant enough that only Blake's Faunus ears could pick up the faint, haunting tones. Ears flattened, head bowed, Blake sent a silent apology to Ruby, Weiss, and the remaining survivors of James Point.

* * *

"Really? Up there?"

"Yes. This is going to be the safest point."

It took a second to locate the source of Blake's voice - no easy task in the darkening light of dusk turning all the dry reddish-brown leaves of the towering tree above into one giant shimmering shadow. Yang silently cursed her lackluster human vision and leveled an incredulous look at the dark blob she assumed to be her partner, watching her lithe form move from branch to branch as fluidly as climbing a simple set of stairs.

Normally, watching a live example of Blake's acrobatic prowess would be supremely awesome... except that the fleet-footed Faunus wanted her to climb up there too. "This thing has to be like, fifty feet tall."

"Try twenty," Blake crouched down, having found a nice spot where a few thicker branches intersected to make something resembling a place to sit. "But, your poor judgment of distance aside, the simple fact is Beowolves can't climb trees, but we can."

Yang frowned up at the branch closest to her, still a good six feet or so above her head.

"You can. I'm kind of one limb short here, unless you've forgotten." Yang motioned to her right arm hanging limp at her side, wrapped tightly in one of Blake's ribbons near the elbow, right where Ember Celica's protection ended. She started when Blake suddenly landed right next to her - she hadn't even heard her jump.

"Maybe now you'll think twice before using your arm to block a Beowolf's teeth?"

"Hey, it worked though, right?"

Blake answered with a hearty roll of her eyes that she knew Yang couldn't see, facing the tree and bracing herself against its massive trunk to make a human ramp. "Come on," she called over her shoulder, "Get up there."

Gritting her teeth, Yang swallowed her complaints and carefully scaled Blake's back, muttering a soft apology as her dirt-caked boots scuffed the Faunus's bare shoulders. With a lot of legwork and solid core strength, the brawler managed to drag herself up onto the branch proper, though she nearly fell right back off when Blake appeared literally right behind her. Her partner's semblance was really something else at night.

The sun had relinquished its reign in the sky by this point, so Blake took her partner's hand, slowly guiding Yang up the branches, higher and higher into the darkness until they finally reached the area Blake had scouted out earlier. "I should still thank you though," Blake continued the flagging trail of conversation, filling the silence as she waited for Yang to situate herself, "I would be in a world of pain if you hadn't taken that hit for me."

"Blakey, seriously stop, you've thanked me for that like six times already. You know I've got your back," Yang shot back with a smile, "I mean, what are partners for, right?"

"R-r-right," Blake's response caught on a full-bodied shiver from a surprise gust of wind that tore through the air, setting the leaves rustling.

"Oh no, none of that. You. C'mere."

Fighting back a light blush of shame at how susceptible she was to the cold, Blake climbed over to her partner's open arms without a second thought, gratefully pressing her back against the brawler's natural warmth and settling into a sort of one-armed hug from behind. She gingerly lifted the brawler's injured arm, pulling it around her as well for a little extra warmth, and to get a better look at the makeshift bandage they'd thrown together for it.

The dark patches of dried blood were nearly impossibly to see against the black color of the fabric, but she could feel the way Yang tensed up whenever her touch ran too close to the wounds themselves. How hard must that thing have bitten her to pierce her aura like this? Carefully running her fingertips across the tightly wound ribbon, Blake could feel Yang's aura slowly working to heal the deep gashes beneath - aura that had been in short supply as of late.

Where the first week of their journey had been largely uneventful, the past three days had been nothing short of hellish thanks to the enormous pack of Beowolves they'd run across that had made it their personal mission to hunt them down. Between the ambushes (the first of which caused Blake to lose her jacket), the coordinated attacks, and the one-eyed, heavily scarred Alpha, it was clear this pack had been around long enough to learn some frighteningly intelligent tricks.

"Hey Blake?"

Wrested from her thoughts, Blake flicked an ear back to acknowledge her partner. "Hm?"

"What do you see?"

Blake threw a quizzical look over her shoulder. "...What?"

"I mean with your night vision," Yang answered quickly, "Just trying to get a bearing on our surroundings and stuff." It definitely wasn't because she thought night vision was the coolest thing ever, and had absolutely nothing to do with how much she enjoyed listening to her partner's voice.

Raising a brow, Blake obliged with a half-smile, "I see the walls of the canyon pass between the mountains that we'll be heading into come morning, I see the river that cuts through it, I see the tree line, the stars, that Beowolf over there that's been watching us for about twenty minutes-"

"Wait, what?" Yang snapped out of the pleasant lull she'd slipped into, scanning what little she could see of their surroundings. Her arm instinctively tightened around Blake when she caught sight of a disembodied pair of glowing red pinpricks sitting stock still in a nearby cluster of bushes. She balled her good hand into a fist. "Should I shoot it?"

"Save your ammunition," Blake covered her partner's fist with her hand. It was the same Beowolf with the broken left-shoulder spine (a battle scar inflicted by a mere glancing blow from the brawler currently looking to finish the job) that had found them already up in a tree the night before, prowling about near the trunk before growling up at them and leaving. "It's probably keeping watch."

"That's... not even remotely reassuring."

"Fine, it's playing hide and seek and losing terribly."

That earned an appreciative chuckle. "You know, something tells me you'd be amazing at hide and seek."

Amused amber glanced back to meet warm amethyst. "You think so?"

"Yeah! At least, you'd be better than-"

Ruby.

The pair fell into an awkward silence. Neither of them had mentioned either of their teammates since they'd left, neither wishing to speak the names of the ones they'd betrayed.

"You know... she could never sit still so..."

Blake didn't know how to respond, so she didn't, leaving a gaping opening for all of the nagging worries and regrets that had built up over their journey to fester unimpeded. It was only when Yang began to shake that she finally pushed herself to speak.

"Yang-"

"I should have said something to her."

Velvet ears flattened in dismay. "Yang don't-"

"I should have left a note or - or given her a hug, anything. Anything would have been better than leaving without a word..." Yang knew it was a little late for regrets, but she buried her head between Blake's shoulder blades all the same, as if she could hide from what she'd done, knowing full well that one look at those silver eyes would have shattered her resolve to leave. How had their mother done it so easily?

Blake bit her lip, whatever words of comfort she could find falling prey to a gnawing sensation of guilt over the impossible choice her decision to leave had forced upon her partner.

"Blake."

The Faunus in question stiffened, preparing for an outburst of blame.

"What am I going to do if she's not there when we get back?"

"Don't say things like that," Blake whipped around as best she could in Yang's hold. She halted at the terror shining in the brawler's eyes. If Blake knew one thing well, it was self-destructive thinking, and Yang was imploding right before her eyes. "Weiss is with her," she tried to sound reassuring, "They're strong partners. Two extremely skilled huntresses. They're going to be fine."

Yang hung her head, heavy with the weight of a loss Blake understood all too well. "I thought mom was going to be fine..."

A single mournful howl pierced their conversation, more and more voices joining the first in eerily sophisticated harmony until the air itself was practically vibrating. They stopped all at once, leaving Blake and Yang's ears ringing, the former letting out a low curse when she took stock of their surroundings.

The entire pack had arrived, and seeing them all at once was not encouraging. She never recalled packs of Grimm being this large when she lived outside the kingdoms.

"How bad is it," Yang's voice was low, inches from Blake's Faunus ears.

"There are probably about two hundred of them. We're surrounded. But they still can't climb trees so-" Blake paused to watch the Beowolf that had been stalking them from the bushes. Her heart dropped into her stomach when it came up to the trunk of the tree and leaned on it - a perfect mirror of how she had done so earlier. "Oh no."

They'd learned. They'd watched and they'd learned.

"What?"

A second Beowolf ran up its back and made it onto the tree's first branch, howling at its success, rattling the leaves around them as it began its shaky path upwards. One branch later it slipped and fell, only to be replaced by nearly a dozen more using their fellow Grimm to clamber up after it. Blake didn't even have to ask for Yang to release her.

"Run."

They leaped from the tree in perfect sync, straight into the writhing mass of teeth and claws below. Blake was on the defensive almost immediately, frantically dodging strikes coming from all sides, loosing shadow clones with every step. Not ten seconds in she lost sight of Yang in the fray, cursing herself for allowing the Grimm to separate them.

Black velvet ears twisted towards Yang's voice calling for her over the din of snarls and guttural barking. She could feel the sharp edge of fear threatening to pierce her composure upon realizing just how far away she'd gotten. "Yang!" Three clean strikes toppled the three Beowolves blocking her path to her partner, but five more took their place. "Yang!" Blake tried to keep her voice level, "This way!"

The seconds of silence that followed were deafening, breeding desperation that tinged her next shout.

"Yang, please!"

Roughly twenty feet away, a bellowing roar born of frustration and rage erupted from Yang in a very literal sense - a crimson storm of swirling flame blasting the surrounding Beowolves into ash. Blake locked onto the towering inferno marking her partner's location, leaping right over a Beowolf's snapping jaws and using the Grimm's head as a springboard into the air, dashing forward with her semblance to gain extra height and distance.

Angling her descent, she impaled a Beowulf gunning for Yang's injured side through the ashes of its fallen packmates. Landing, she rolled into the brawler's flames to swipe the legs right out from underneath the Beowolves creeping up on her partner's back as Yang spun with a fierce left hook, knocking the jaw clean off a Beowolf that dared near her wall of fire.

Yang was visibly flagging, but she held her flames in place, feeling ten thousand lifetimes stronger with Blake standing at her back, even as the pack circled around them, wary, waiting. There was no way she would admit it... but there was no way they could fight surrounded like this.

"We're running," Blake whispered to her partner, clearly lacking any aversion to admitting they were outmatched.

"Okay, where?"

"The canyon pass."

The brawler felt Blake take hold of her hand - the useless one that had regained barely enough strength for her to feebly grip back. The Faunus tapped her finger against Yang's knuckles once... twice... three times.

Yang dropped her flames, and they shot forward together, bursting right through the wall of Beowolves blocking their path. Blake led the way, eyes locked on the dark opening to the canyon pass looming in the distance as they ducked and weaved, evading direct combat as best they could.

Which, actually proved to be surprisingly easy. If anything, it seemed as though the pack was allowing them through, and so they ran with abandon, finally breaking through the last of the Grimm's ranks and sprinting out into open terrain.

Blake didn't need to look back to hear the pack following them, oddly patterned howls and yips sending chills down her spine as they neared the pass. This was their ticket through the mountains. If they could get through here, it would be a clear shot back to Vale, with Beacon's tower to guide their way.

At least, that was the plan until the canyon opening literally exploded.

It wasn't an explosion of dust or heat, but one of sheer brute strength - a huge black white and red mass bursting forth from the canyon pass, sending chunks of rock wall flying in every direction.

Yang stopped just short of being crushed by an ursa-sized boulder, pulling Blake to her side to keep the Faunus from meeting a similar fate as she seemed to have halted in her tracks to simply stare, transfixed.

A Goliath. Riding atop its head, the Beowolf pack's Alpha.

As laughably absurd of a picture it made, the thought of different kinds of Grimm collaborating against them made Blake sick to her stomach. Somewhere in the back of her head, she knew the pack of Beowolves was fanning out around them, closing them in against the Goliath blocking their path through the mountainside.

Squaring up against the pack advancing behind them, Yang glanced over her shoulder, catching a glimpse of what had grasped Blake's attention. Glowing red eyes a disturbingly high distance up from the ground. The outline of stark white tusks gleaming with starlight. Yang set her jaw and returned her attention to the pack, pressing her back against Blake's.

"Let me guess. It's big."

Blake's smile was wry. "You could say... it's Goliath."

Yang flashed her teeth in a grin, uncertain whether she wanted to laugh or cry.

There were just so many of them. So many... and then suddenly there was one less.

The Alpha Beowolf jerked sideways off its perch, bits of fur and bone exploding from its head for seemingly no reason.

 _Crack_ , a sniper rifle's report caught up to the bullet as the Grimm tumbled down to sprawl over the Goliath's massive tusk.

Yang's breath hitched. She knew the sound of those high-caliber shells by heart. Blake watched with wide eyes as the Goliath began to sway from side to side. With the towering Grimm's sheer size lending its movements the illusion of time having slowed, the Goliath lowered its head, allowing the Alpha to drop. Its body sifted away into ash before it even hit the ground.

The Beowolf pack erupted into a frenzy, surging forward with wild abandon, met head on as Yang dove straight into the fray that engulfed Blake soon after.

* * *

Ruby loaded another heavy round and slid Crescent Rose's bolt into place and looked through her heavily modified scope just as the wave of Grimm swept over her older sister and Blake. "Whoops."

Beside her the repaired sled loaded with the rest of the gear. Drei, his heavy white winter coat all fluff in the cold, stood in his makeshift harness. His warm breath puffed out, and his ears perked as Ruby swung her scythe back into its compact form and braced herself on the icy ridge.

"Show time."

* * *

 **A/N: So we're already alternate timeline, but after Volume 4 we thought, "What the heck? May as well go all the way." and now we're an AU.**

 **No huge differences, but just a heads up, we're definitely going to diverge from cannon in terms of backstories and history of Remnant stuff, along with some other details that'll turn up eventually.**

 **For now, let's get ready to fight a whole bunch of Grimm.**

 **See you next week,**

 **\- Fiercesomest**


	30. Snow Time

**A/N: There is something so much fun about writing ridiculous action scenes.**

 **HUGS,**  
 **D**

* * *

The shot was the signal.

High up on the canyon ridge, there was a crunch of snow, lost in the cacophony of howls and gunshots below, and a rush of cold, night air as Weiss Schnee leapt from the icy ledge, clearing the wide gap in a graceful arc and sticking a landing on the Goliath's shoulders.

The massive Grimm either didn't notice or didn't care about its new passenger. It didn't break stride as it plodded into the writhing mass of Beowolves, crushing more than a few beneath its feet as it made its way to the glowing yellow huntress that had caught its eye.

"'Oh, yes, let's fight on the ground right in the path of one of the largest Grimm known to man. I'm sure nothing will go wrong'," breathing hard, Weiss growled her impression of Yang and Blake as she balanced up the creature's shifting shoulders to the crown of its head. It had a slick, bristly sort of coat that didn't provide her snow boots much traction. She gripped Myrtenaster, its chamber spinning to blue, "We'll just ride that good idea all the way to Beacon."

With her last word, she thrust her rapier through the thick tissue of the Grimm's upper eyelid, flash-freezing the entire right quarter of its face.

As the surface of its flesh and one of its eyes solidified, the Goliath's interests shifted. Letting loose a low shuddering grunt, the massive Grimm reared up, swinging its entire body towards the mountainside and smashing its head into the rocky crags, shattering the ice that encrusted it like so much glass.

Boulders falling from the impact dropped like shadowed meteors into the blood-frenzied pack of Beowolves below, narrowly missing the bright burning light that was slowly gaining potency.

Weiss clung to the thick bristles behind the Goliath's bone mask on the non-rock-smashing side of its neck, cringing as fist sized chunks of rock and ice cascaded over her. She strained to catch hold of one of the massive spikes that ran along its spine and haul herself back up.

"Yang Xiao Long," she yelled, mostly because it felt good to shout the blonde's full name, "if you and Blake don't both get up here I swear-"

 _Crack._

The shot came from much closer this time, along the ridge level with the Goliath's head. A Beowolf with its teeth almost in Yang's leg spilled sideways in the snow.

Weiss and Ruby were here. They were fine and they were here and the sheer relief of that single thought kept Yang swinging through her exhaustion. "Kind a busy here princess!" She shouted right back, punching a lunging Beowolf so hard it flew head over heels through the air and bounced like a ragdoll off of the Goliath's brow.

"Yang, get out of there!" Blake had already appeared right beside Weiss, trying to use the Goliath's height to get a better view of her partner's location. From this angle, the burning point of reddish yellow storming in and around the pack of Beowolves was nearly impossible to miss.

* * *

"Come on, guys..." Ruby sighted through Crescent Rose from her new vantage point, a hundred yards closer to the fighting. She moved her focus from Yang in the middle of the boiling mass of shadow and bone - the individual Beowolves were hard to distinguish in the moonlight - to Weiss and Blake in position on the Goliath, up to the precarious ledge of snow and ice overhanging the steep canyon pass.

There was more than enough to bury even the biggest Grimm till spring.

* * *

Weiss held on as the Goliath lurched, trying to dislodge its riders, "Lead it into the canyon!"

Blake nodded, waiting until the Goliath was between grunts to call to her partner over the din of the battle. "Yang! About face! Head to the canyon!"

The brawler did just that, whipping around and flaring the surplus semblance she'd been building, incinerating everything in her path. She ran full tilt, evading rather than punching the occasional Beowolf that somehow made it through her wall of fire. There wasn't much she could see past the light afforded by her own flames, but if nothing else, the single glowing red eye of the Goliath gave her something to aim for.

Weiss hauled herself up, short of breath. Yang's blaze of fire had ruined her night vision and the Goliath seemed like it was turning in circles, scraping its sides against the cliff walls in an attempt to smash her and Blake. She scrubbed her sleeve across her eyes, shouting to her Faunus teammate, "As soon as we're in, we'll have to catch Ruby on the sled."

"On the _what-_ Yang! Hard right!"

A thundering crash shook the ground as the Goliath's foot smashed down into dirt, snow, and Beowolves, right where Yang would have been had she not changed her trajectory. Dust and grit kicked up from the impact sizzled against the brawler's barrier of flames as Blake's rapid-fire directions led her in and around the massive Grimm's attempts to trample her.

Finally, her flames illuminated the yawning gap of the canyon pass.

The Goliath let loose a deep bellowing roar, giving a mighty full-bodied shake before storming right into the narrow pass in pursuit of the flickering flame that had evaded its feet, shoulders and sides scraping against the rock walls on either side.

* * *

Ruby had been watching for this (and also watching to make sure their racket hadn't set things rolling ahead of schedule). She palmed her single explosive round. It felt like a chunk of solid lead, but it was mostly ultra-compressed, ultra-fine red Dust, straight out of one of Weiss's cases that time she gave her limited (very limited) access to her supplies for her birthday.

That had been an awesome birthday.

When the giant Grimm made a beeline for the canyon after Yang, Ruby brought Crescent Rose up, chambering the heavy round and firing up at the base of the unstable crest of snow looming high over the narrow canyon.

She leapt to Drei, heart pounding, and clipped a lead to the harness she and Weiss had rigged up as the distant, muffled boom of impact echoed through the night, followed by a muted ripple of sound, like thunder.

"All aboard the RWBY express," Ruby gripped the side of the rebuilt and slightly modified sled and shoved off.

* * *

"Look for Ruby!" Weiss threw up an arm to deflect a tumble of ice and rock scraped from the canyon wall by the Goliath's spikes. She coughed, clinging to the Goliath's spine spikes for dear life, "I swear, if she's late-"

"There!" Blake followed the distant rapport of Ruby's shot and zeroed in on a splash of red moving against the darkness - Ruby's cape flaring out behind her as she sped along the snow-topped edge of the canyon in a sled pulled by that huge white dog. Her ears swiveled towards a low rumbling growl, heart dropping at the prospect of more Grimm to deal with. Then she spotted the looming, moving wall of snow and ice that had begun to spill into the canyon behind them. It rushed onward, continuing to spill over the lip nearer and nearer to their current position.

"Yang! Get up here, now!"

The brawler complied immediately with a running leap, pushing for extra height by sacrificing a couple of her limited explosive rounds from Ember Celica.

It was exactly what the Goliath had been waiting for. Blake nearly lost her footing on the beast's neck when it swung its massive head, its leathery trunk flashing out as if to swat a firefly. Yang's light disappeared between rock and bone, smashed against the canyon wall.

"Whoa!" Ruby shouted above, yanking Drei's harness to get him to change direction as the headlong rush of Grimm down in the canyon came to a standstill. The roar of the avalanche reached freight train levels. If they didn't move, the wall of snow and ice would reach them in a matter of seconds, around which time the rest of the mountainside would pour into the canyon on top of them. Ruby knew all that, but it didn't matter. Shuff! Drei jumped and the sled launched off the lip of the canyon.

Weiss barely had time to get her footing, much less try to see what was left of Yang, before the sled landed on the Goliath's back.

Ruby yelled, and there was a screech of tearing metal as its hull was impaled on a bone spike, and the bulk of it clipped Weiss in the shoulder, knocking her from her perch. She fell with a surprised shriek, twisting herself around to stab her sword into the Goliath's hide in a desperate attempt to halt her descent before she slid clean off and into the pack of ravenous Beowolves that surged around the giant Grimm's feet.

Sweeping in much like the shadows she embodied, Blake appeared seemingly out of nowhere, following a wide arc to snatch Weiss from the air just as Myrtenaster's tenuous purchase between two bony plates gave way, her own Gambol Shroud's ribbon carrying them both through an upswing that dropped them right between Ruby and Drei, who was scrambling in his traces.

With a solid yank to dislodge her blade from the bony neck spire she'd hastily embedded it in, Blake's hair whipped around her as she scanned the rock wall the Goliath was grinding its trunk into, chest seizing at the lack of any visible light. She whipped around to give her teammates a cursory check before going to her partner's aide and promptly froze.

Were it not for the contrast provided by Ruby sitting right behind her partner, Weiss would have been all but invisible, camouflaged against the towering wall of powdery white immediately behind them.

Ruby and Weiss exchanged glances as the roaring avalanche loomed, blocking the stars. Red flared along Myrtenaster's edge as Weiss drove Drei into the sled.

"Ready?" Ruby yelled to Blake, cocking back Crescent Rose. Without waiting for an answer, she fired, whipping the massive scythe clean through the bone spurs impaling the sled. At the same time, Weiss thrust her sword deep between the plates of bone armor of the Goliath's shoulder to distract if from crushing Yang.

Blake was not ready at all, but she dashed forward anyway, away from the ringing burst of red singing her heels and riding the irritated jerk of the Goliath's shoulders up into the air. The giant beast's head swung around as far as it could in the narrow pass, its trunk gunning for the pests on its back. Finally, she saw Yang - a blur of smeared reds and glowing gold embedded in the rock wall, limp and slowly leaning forward. She was going to fall.

Running on pure adrenaline, Blake threw Gambol Shroud straight into the beast's neck and angled her descent with as many dashes forward as her semblance could handle, shadow clones falling like rain in the wake of her sheer determination to reach Yang, one arm outstretched to grab the brawler steadily slipping from her rocky prison. Her weapon's ribbon was more than long enough to reach... that is, until the Goliath reared up on its hind legs, dragging her anchor along with it.

Time seemed to slow as Blake felt herself jerked upwards, stopping her inches short of reaching her target, fingertips just brushing the split ends of glowing yellow curls. Yang's face was peaceful as she fell, like she had simply gone to sleep.

"Yang!"

Crimson eyes snapped open, locking with terror-stricken amber. A flash-bang explosion of flames from her partner's overcharged semblance had Blake shielding her eyes, but she distinctly heard the sound of a metal gauntlet crunching into solid stone, followed by two evenly spaced explosive shots, each coming closer than the last. Heat crashed into her a second later, driving both of them straight up into the air, and though every one of Blake's senses were consumed by fire, she could feel a familiar arm clinging to her like a vice - Yang - and she gripped back, holding on for dear life.

Everything that came next happened in the span of only a few seconds.

The roar of the ice and snow and ice as it tipped into the edge of the canyon filled the air, drowning out everything but the Goliath's bellows and the muted crack of bullets from Crescent Rose.

The sled slammed into Blake and Yang, hands catching and hauling till they were flat on the floor. A ragged hole gaped in the sheet metal where the Goliath's spike had punched through. It could have given a heart-stopping view of the Beowolves' frenzy as the sled dropped if anyone had looked. Ruby's sights were fixed ahead, though.

"Hang on!" she yelled as they shot over the Grimm, ice and stones and splintered branches raining down on them from the avalanche.

Blake did exactly that, as she was unable to do much else with Yang pinning her to the bottom of the sled, shielding her from whatever debris her flames didn't immediately incinerate. Her partner's glowing tangle of hair in her face made it impossible to see, so she shut her eyes, trusting in Ruby's navigation.

That probably wasn't one of Blake's better decisions, given Ruby's almost complete inability to steer the airborne sled.

Ten thousand pounds of snow and ice bore down on them, blocking off the faint glimmer of starlit snow ahead at the end of the canyon. Even rocketing forward as they were, they weren't going to make it out before the snow crushed them. Below and behind, Grimm howled, some in fury, some in triumph, for even if they died they were at least certain to witness their prey's demise.

"Weiss!" Ruby roared out, using Crescent Rose to deflect a slab of ice the size of the entire sled.

From someplace between the tangle of Blake and Yang and Drei in the front of the sled, the heiress called forth a glyph in the air just in front of them. The sled shot through like an oversized bullet, shedding splinters of wood and metal as it screeched through the narrowest part of the canyon, bursting through a final wall of snow as the avalanche poured down.

The Beowolves' cries were cut off, and icy debris spilled out after the sled for another several hundred feet down the shallow grade.

The sled itself touched down, skimming the snow on its way straight into a thicket of stunted pines.

"Hang on!" Ruby yelled, unable to steer at all. The sled deflected off a sapling and slammed into a larger tree.

 _WHAM._

The impact threw the team high, dumping them into the deep snow.

* * *

 **A/N: Woo! Team RWBY is back together! Tune in next week for... a fair amount of fallout.**

 **-Fiercesomest**


	31. Go Time

Blake was the first to emerge, leaving behind a shadow clone in her haste to escape the snowy cocoon of cold surrounding her. Drei popped his head up a second later, shaking powdery white from his coat. At Blake's wide-eyed stare, he wisely did not run to greet her, instead opting to follow his ears and nose, rooting through the snow for his red and white companions.

With the adrenaline high from the rush of combat just starting to recede, a very new kind of panic bloomed in the Faunus's chest to take its place. Ruby and Weiss were here - right here. They had followed them, tracked them, somehow caught up... which, actually was not that surprising given their combined speeds.

She wasn't ready to face them. She didn't know if she'd ever be ready to face them. Not after what she and Yang- Blake whipped around. Yang.

The brawler was easy to spot - steam rising from a large hole in a rapidly melting pile of snow only a few feet away. The horrid vision of that Goliath smashing Yang like a fly flashed through her mind's eye, but there was just no room left in her for more panic. Uttering a low curse, she went to her partner's aid.

Meanwhile, Ruby tumbled down out of the springy, higher branches of one of the pines, landing knee deep in the powdery snow below. She'd taken the liberty of scoping out the area while she'd been up there. All was quiet, except for the echoing cracks and bone deep rumbles of the settling avalanche. The sky arched over them like a star speckled bowl, held up at the edges by the mountain peaks.

Weiss spat and wiped her nose with her hand- it was bleeding, the blood making dark spots in the snow- but she seemed alright otherwise. She recoiled when Drei floundered over and tried to lick her face.

Ruby trudged uphill in the snow to the others, dreading having to talk to them.

"We're clear," she said. An aching, hurting feeling in her heart made it hard to say anything else. She rubbed her hand over it, but it didn't help. For the past week, half of her had been sure that Yang would be okay, but the other half remembered her mom. She'd been sure her mom would be okay too, and now... now... Ruby swallowed, gripping Crescent Rose. She spoke to Blake, who was looking after Yang, "She's—is she—?"

Blake froze, muscles rigid, Faunus ears standing at full attention. With an agonizing slowness, she turned to look back over her shoulder, stopping when the corner of her eye caught sight of Ruby's face. A wild urge to run crashed over her - she tensed, ready to spring.

As if she could sense her intent, Yang's glowing hand suddenly reached up from the snowy bank and gripped Blake's forearm, stopping her cold.

"I'm fine," the brawler coughed out, sitting up. Her hair was drenched from the slush and snow, still glowing bright with latent energy, and even though she looked like a wreck, the majority of the cuts peppering her face and arms were superficial at best and already healing, leaving behind trails of stale red. Similarly colored eyes lifted to meet silver. "I'm fine, Ruby."

"You're fine?" Weiss spat, standing up from where she'd fallen. She flung a handful of bloody snow she'd been holding to her still-bleeding nose into the dark pines around them, "You left us. You left us a week ago, in the middle of this Grimm-infested _nowhere_ without so much as a note, and all you have to say for yourself is that you're _fine_?"

Yang gritted her teeth, flinching as if she'd been gut-punched, eyes dropping right back to the snow.

Blake however, bared her teeth, rounding on the heiress with unbridled fury. "We _left_ to get _help._ We left because the only other option anyone could think of was to stick around and wait for the Grimm to come finish us off, while we babysat a village who would rather see us dead anyway."

"Blake, please," Yang tugged on her partner's arm, wincing when the Faunus pulled away, advancing on Weiss.

" _Someone_ had to accept that we couldn't do it on our own. Someone had to go get backup." Blake's fists shook. "I did what had to be done."

"Oh that's a great reason for abandoning us without even telling us your plan," Weiss didn't back down an inch, if anything her temper rose to match Blake's. She bit the words out, "We're a team. At least we're supposed to be. You can't just leave and-"

Ruby let Crescent Rose fall in the snow and caught hold of Yang, burying her face in her sister's shoulder. Her tears were icy cold. She didn't make a sound, but just held on for all she was worth.

"I told you my plan," Blake snapped back, brushing right past a whimpering Drei on her warpath to Weiss, "I told you and you refused to even consider it." She swept her arm wide, nearly clipping the heiress in the face as she gestured to her partner, "Yang was the only one willing to _listen-_ " Blake almost faltered as her gaze flicked over to the sisters. Yang was clutching Ruby like her very life depended on it, her tear-streaked face twisting in anguish as she whispered what sounded like an endless stream of apologies.

There was absolutely nothing Blake could think of say to Ruby that would make amends, so she refocused on Weiss, feeling an extra surge of anger at her own cowardice, her inability to face the second leader she'd betrayed. "What good is sticking together as a team if it gets us all killed?!"

"Fine, then, go!" Weiss shot an arm back to the canyon, "Where's your gear? Where's your _map_? Do you know anything about the road out of these mountains? The people of James Point had charts and guides to steer travelers away from things like, oh, I don't know, _massive packs of Beowolves_. Ruby got copies the second day after you left, when she talked to the villagers. Which she had to do _alone_."

"You mean those same villagers we visited with supplies on our way out? The ones we gave at least some shred of hope to hold on to, knowing help would be on the way? You make it sound like we just skipped out of town without a single care in the world," Blake crossed that final line, stepping right into the heiress's personal space.

"Some of us don't need maps and gear to make it through the wilds," her voice dropped as she glared down at Weiss, using their slight difference in height to her fullest advantage. "Some of us were raised outside the safety of the kingdom's walls. Why do you think I volunteered myself for this trip in the first place?"

"I don't care why you volunteered," Weiss jabbed her finger at Blake's collar, "I care that you left us behind, right when we needed-"

Ruby couldn't listen anymore. She scrubbed her eyes on her sleeve and pushed back from Yang.

"Stop fighting," she ordered, following Blake's path in the snow to physically separate the two girls with a hand on each of their shoulders. Weiss started to protest but Ruby repeated, "Stop." and Weiss gritted her teeth but kept her mouth shut.

Ruby turned her attention to Blake, but didn't have anything to say so she spoke to the whole team instead. "It's dark. It's cold. We're tired. Let's set up camp."

Like a hand closing over a spitting candle, Ruby's touch snuffed out Blake's fire, leaving her cold and wary. Still, she heeded Ruby's call and stopped, shooting Weiss a dark, parting glare and pivoting on her heel to stalk back through the snow. Yang stood and caught her arm again when she passed by, questioning her with a simple look.

"I'm going to get firewood," Blake announced, more than a bit defensive.

Yang's grip loosened a bit, but she held fast. "Gotcha. Sorry I can't come with you."

Amber eyes narrowed in confusion, "What-"

"Blake listen to me," Yang gripped her partner's arms and held her gaze, using Blake to steady herself as the glow surrounding her started to fade, "I don't know how long I'll be out, but please, you have to be here when I wake up. Don't..." she took a deep breath, trying to finish her request, "Don't..." _Don't leave._

Blake's ears flattened as she watched her partner's eyes fade to amethyst. "Yang, this is really not the best time to- Yang?!" The brawler had already slumped forward onto her partner, the rush of dead weight nearly throwing Blake's balance for a loop.

"Yang!" Ruby's rose petals tumbled among the trees as she appeared next to the two, catching Yang's arm. She got it over her shoulder to take some of the load from Blake while Weiss slogged through the snow after her. Yang's knees dragged in the snow as her semblance's warmth bled away. Ruby searched for a more sheltered place to lay her down. A few yards away, the trees were thicker. It was darker, but it looked like their branches and needles kept a lot of the snow off the ground. She nodded towards the place, looking to Weiss over Blake out of habit, "Over there?"

Weiss panted, burying a hand in Drei's fur to find his collar as she caught her breath.

"Go on. I'll get the sled," she straightened up, giving Blake a scornful glance, "and some wood to start a fire."

Blake glowered right back, refusing to speak a word in response as she helped Ruby drag Yang to a thoroughly covered space between a cluster of pines. She worked in silence with Ruby to clear the area of its thin coating of snow before finally laying the brawler down on her back.

The sight of Yang lying motionless in the dirt had an eerie sense of finality that didn't sit well with Blake, but she couldn't take her eyes off of her, mainly because the only other option would be to face Ruby. So, she sat on the ground beside her partner, head bowed as she took hold of Yang's good arm, carefully reaching inside Ember Celica to hit the small switch that retracted the gauntlet. She hesitated to reach for Yang's other arm, noting Ruby standing right nearby.

Apprehension coiled inside Blake like a spring, Faunus ears flattening with each passing second of silence. Weiss's burst of anger had been textbook, but Ruby... The younger girl was entirely unpredictable, just like her sister, and all Blake could do was stare at her snow-crusted boots.

Why wasn't she saying anything? Was she just going to stand there?

Gripping Yang's cooling hand for some semblance of support, Blake braced herself and lifted her head to look up at Ruby, only to find her focused on the clasps of her red cape, trying to get them undone in the dark. One had gotten caught on a thread and it took some time to get it untangled.

"There," the word was muted in the stillness as Ruby swept the garment from around her shoulders, spreading it out so half of it covered the shallow bed of dry pine needles they'd cleared of snow. She crouched down to position Yang's arm so they were crossed over her chest and wouldn't drag on the ground when they moved her to the makeshift bed, only looking up at Blake when she moved to hold both of Yang's boots under her arms. "I'll get her legs, you get her shoulders, okay?"

Anxiety burned hot in the back of Blake's throat, thwarting her ability to speak, so she simply nodded, moving behind Yang and slipping her arms around the brawler. Holding her hands in place, she lifted in time with Ruby, frowning at the loose way Yang's head lolled back against her shoulder.

Somehow, their combined strength was enough to successfully shift Yang over onto Ruby's cloak, and gingerly, with the utmost care, they set her on the well-worn fabric. The bright red backdrop brought out all the matching streaks of red still marring the brawler's face, each one a sharp reminder of what Blake's decisions had put her partner through.

Blake tried to wipe one away, but it had already dried. She flinched back, biting her lip.

This wasn't how it was supposed to happen. They had been making great time. Their trip had been fine until that Beowolf pack, and Blake refused to believe that something as simple as a map could really have helped them avoid such a large, moving threat.

Unable to look any more, Blake sat back, knees up, ears flat, and face buried in her hands, trying to shut everything out.

* * *

 **A/N: Hahah well they're back together now! Sort of! Oh gosh.**

 **Until next time~**

 **HUGS,**  
 **D**

 **Double A/N: 100 favorites! Shucks, guys. You're so nice.**

 **\- Fiercesomet**


	32. Much Ado about Blake

Ruby tucked the other half of her cloak over Yang to try to keep her at least a little bit warm. Weiss would be back with the sled and blankets and stuff soon. She glanced at Blake, who was hiding her face in her hands, her ears pinned back against her hair. In the dark, she was a shadow against the thin dusting of snow. Ruby's heart dropped to her boots.

Swallowing thickly, she mirrored her teammate, pulling her knees up to her chest. "Hey, Blake?"

The urge to run came rushing right back, but Blake fought it tooth and nail, refusing to move even her hands from her face. Besides, what was the point in running from someone whose semblance was speed itself? "Yes, Ruby?"

"I'm just... really sorry," Ruby hugged her knees a little closer. The night air was cold on the back of her neck without her cloak. "I wasn't doing a great job of being team leader. Weiss yelled at me a lot, and we talked to the villagers- it turns out they… they picked a new guardian while we were all snowed in and fighting robots, so they might be okay while we go get help, just… I messed things up, trying to make us figure it all out ahead of time."

Brows knit in confusion, Blake cautiously lifted her head to examine her team leader. There were plenty of questions she could have asked - about the state of the villagers, or about this new guardian, but she found everything overshadowed by her leader's very first sentence. Ruby Rose, unpredictable as the shifting breeze she personified - fully within her rights to chastise her, get angry, threaten expulsion from the team for desertion... instead here she was, apologizing.

It was wholly unsettling. The entire point of her trip was to find help in a way that kept the blame and guilt out of Ruby's hands, but for some reason the younger girl had freely accepted both on her own terms. Blake lowered her head once more. She'd failed on both accounts, it had all been for nothing, and she couldn't accept an apology she didn't deserve.

"There were no good options," Blake offered quietly, feeling unbidden tears creep up on her.

"Yeah, maybe," Ruby watched the dark where Yang rested instead of meeting Blake's eyes. Her breath misted as she let out a sigh, "but if we'd waited to talk about it, we could have picked one that didn't make you feel like you had to leave. So I'm really, really sorry, Blake."

"Ruby _stop_ , this isn't right," Blake snapped, dropping her hands in utter frustration to better throw a pleading look her leader's way. Those bright silver eyes, nearly identical in shade to the silver rose insignia clasped to her ammunition belt. How was it that all of her leaders followed the theme of roses? Adam would have struck her down in a heartbeat for a betrayal like this. Adam would have _killed her._

"You're not supposed to apologize, that's my responsibility, you can't be held accountable for my choices-" _you're supposed to hate me_ \- Blake stopped herself just short of shouting, realizing her voice had been steadily rising with each word.

Taking a deep breath did not help clear her head, but she got up anyway, unable to shake the pointless urge to run. Her feet seemed to move on their own, taking a small step back that she wouldn't have even noticed if she weren't staring holes into the ground. "I thought I could do this for you..."

"Blake, I-" Ruby had scrambled up at the end of Blake's outburst and stood, hands partly raised to try and calm her down. Blake looked like she was ready to bolt.

"You thought you could do what for her exactly?" Weiss asked as she ducked through the thick trees with an armload of broken branches. Her coat and hair showed white in the scraps of waning moonlight that got through the pine branches. Her tone had lost most of its bite from earlier. She stopped just inside the edge of the clearing, brow furrowed.

Blake's eyes snapped up to meet Weiss's, answers running a mile a minute through her head.

She thought she could take the brunt of the guilt for an impossible decision, keep Ruby from the harshness of the real world. So many of her own decisions had turned out badly anyway, what was one more if it kept Ruby's spark alive and well - kept the younger girl from becoming jaded as she had?

The more she tried to word things, the worse it sounded in her head, and she couldn't help but think Weiss would ridicule her until the end of time if she said anything so dramatic. Blake took another step back, finding no good way to explain herself. Yang probably would have been able to make things sound reasonable, but she was... Blake's gaze flickered to the downed brawler, wondering at how blurry her image had become.

Furious at herself for the tears she now realized were running down her face, Blake faced Weiss once more and forced herself to answer, hating the way her voice wavered, "I thought I could get help."

Weiss seemed to search Blake's face in the dim starlight, then crossed in front of her to dump her small load of branches on the bare patch of ground near Yang. "Next time at least tell us you're going."

"You brought the sled, right?" Ruby's boot soles crunched over the ice in the pine needles to Blake's side, touching her shoulder gently, "Want to come get the sleeping bags and stuff?"

Wind whispered through the trees. Behind them, wood clacked together, probably Weiss setting up a fire pit, but Blake said nothing. A chunk of snow slipped from a branch overhead, landing right beside her foot. Finally, the Faunus breathed a bone-deep sigh. She still couldn't meet Ruby's gaze, but she nodded anyway, quietly following along as the younger girl led her to the sled.

She hadn't gotten the chance to get a good look at it in the rush of trying to not die at the hands- feet? -of the Goliath, so it took her a second to appreciate just how efficiently it had been packed. Weiss's hand was evident in the perfectly symmetrical ropes securely tying down rations of dried meats, crackers, ammunition, perfectly folded sleeping bags... and was that a pot?

The sheer volume of _things_ baffled her. It seemed like so much to bring when nature already supplied everything anyone could need for a journey.

She really couldn't deny the convenience, though, already wishing she could wrap herself in one of the blankets Ruby was piling into her arms. Still searching for something to look at other than those twin pools of mercury threatening to drown her, Blake settled on watching Drei dig in the loose snowpile that had spilled out of the canyon.

"Don't worry," Ruby said when she'd noticed Blake watching Drei. She hefted the pot, which appeared to have something inside. "If he digs up a beowolf he'll probably eat it."

Belatedly she realized it wasn't a great time for jokes. She bit her lip, propping the pot on one hip while she snugged up the tarp over the things they weren't bringing into the cramped circle of trees.

By the time they got back, Weiss had a modest fire going. The warm light cast flickering shadows among the trees while the wood hissed and popped, full of sap and melting snow. Weiss was busy hunting for more fuel around the clearing, within sight of Yang.

And what a sight she was. Though part of Blake knew it could just be her night vision playing tricks on her, stripped of her usual energetic smile, her partner looked positively gaunt in the firelight, deep shadows dancing across her face. Had she really taken that poorly to the wild diet they'd kept of fish and foraged greens? Granted, it could also very well be the effects of stress. Stress she couldn't hide with a grin when she was out cold.

"I'm sorry," Blake whispered, addressing Ruby even though her eyes never left Yang, "I'm sorry I couldn't keep her from coming with me."

Ruby avoided looking at either Blake or Yang. She set down the pot and armload of gear and pretended to be distracted, digging for a pair of fingerless gloves in her pockets. She hadn't figured out how to feel about Yang leaving her behind- part terrified, part betrayed, part glad Blake wasn't alone but also afraid she'd never get her sister back. Now that she was back, maybe she didn't need to figure it out. The wind sighed through the pine branches overhead and Ruby refocused on getting everyone warm.

"We only brought three sleeping bags 'cause we needed the space and thought we'd just switch out while we were on watch at night, you know? But the waterproof shell on one got kind of ripped up and isn't really any good," it was a good thing she'd slept in her boots- their first night out she'd woken up crusted in ice up to her shins. Ruby pulled one of the compact rolls of material from the bundle of things in Blake's arms, grimacing at how small it seemed as she got it unrolled, "Anyway, we'll just have to share the others."

"I am not sleeping with Yang, by the way," Weiss contributed from the other side of the clearing.

Blake hadn't been paying attention, only catching the tail end of Weiss's declaration. The situation was easy enough to surmise from Ruby's grimace at their two distinctly one-person sized sleeping bags, and the cold winds biting straight through her clothes. The prospect of a night in the snow without Yang's natural warmth surrounding her was not at all appealing, but the last thing she wanted was to appear even more selfish than she already felt.

"I can just use blankets," she offered, trying to look Ruby in the eyes, but only getting as far as her shoulder.

"We... didn't bring any," Ruby pointed to the folded cloth Blake was referring to, "That's the ripped one. We didn't pack any since these are supposed to be good for temperatures below freezing, and they are!... unless they um..."

"Get sliced open by someone's very large, very sharp scythe," Weiss finished for Ruby, dumping her meager collection of sticks and broken branches next to the fire. She held her hands up in a gesture of peace, rolling her eyes, "It was an accident. I know. But it was your accident. So you share."

Ruby shrugged, dispirited after the long day, "Well, I'll take first watch," she glanced at Blake again, "Do you mind sharing with Yang?"

Blake shook her head - she didn't mind in the slightest. She opened her mouth to say as much, but what came out was much closer to a startled shriek as something freezing cold and sharp pressed against the small of her back. Whipping around fast enough to leave an afterimage, Blake dropped everything she was holding and went for her weapon, feeling a brief flash of panic at finding only Shroud. That is, until she got a good look at her cheerful "assailant".

Drei stared up at her, eyes bright, tail wagging, proudly holding Gambol's contracted form in his teeth, its long bedraggled ribbon trailing behind him. Temporarily rendered speechless, Blake took the other half of her weapon back, noting that while it was now covered in a fine layer of slobber, it was otherwise no worse for wear. It must have gotten stripped from her during the sled ride. She hadn't even noticed.

Having successfully unearthed the buried treasure and returned it to its owner, the mountain dog moved back to Ruby's side, circling around her and pressing his head into her hand.

"Hey," Ruby laughed a little, bending to scratch the dog's ears with both hands, "Gonna stay up with me, huh? Here, let's get Yang fixed up first."

Between the three of them (Ruby, Weiss, and Blake- not Drei), they managed to wrestle Yang's limp form into one of the sleeping bags. Ruby worked in silence while Weiss muttered about Yang being stupid every time she spotted a new injury. A cut here, a bruise there, everything healing slowly as her aura recovered.

Ruby refastened her cloak around her shoulders, shrinking into the residual warmth. She told herself that Yang would be fine. Blake wasn't hurt, and Weiss was still holding up despite the strain of using her glyphs earlier. The firelight flickered as Ruby watched the heiress scoop another handful of snow and scrub the traces of frozen blood from her upper lip. She must be okay if she felt good enough to bother with cleaning up.

She looked up through the trees. The mountains' jagged silhouettes blocked out the stars in places. It would be a long time before she saw Beacon tower again. Her gaze dropped back to Blake, "All set?"

The Faunus nodded, zipping up the last few inches of the sleeping bag around herself and Yang. She was acutely aware of her position laying practically on top of her partner, and even though she'd spent the past week curled against the brawler on a nightly basis, the added presence of Ruby and Weiss made her extremely self conscious.

Her logical side reasoned that the close proximity was necessary for them to both fit inside the bag, and the rest of her helpfully added that this would be the best way to make absolutely sure Yang didn't spend a single second thinking she'd left her when she eventually woke. Not only that, but with how tightly the complete lack of space pressed them together, there would be very little chance of her breaking and making a run for it if she happened to psyche herself out. It was unlikely either of them would be moving much at all in their sleep.

Blake bit back a yawn. It was hard to believe that just hours ago, she'd been about to spend the night with Yang up in a tree, feeling certain that she was doing the right thing, certain they would return triumphant, certain they could save the town and save Ruby. Now, all she felt was exhausted and stupid, certain she'd made the absolute worst possible choice, certain that she'd irreparably destroyed the team's bond (and wrecked a familial bond to boot), and certain the town would be nothing but a pile of nameless gravestones upon their return.

Wishing dearly that she could just melt down into the shadows and never trouble her teammates again, Blake did the next best thing and buried her face in Yang's hair, giving in to the temporary oblivion of sleep.

* * *

The embers burned low, and the shattered moon had risen far overhead by the time Ruby nudged Weiss awake for her turn at watch.

The heiress struggled out of her sleeping bag, brushing frozen pine needles from her hair while Ruby waited, crouched under her red cloak in the moonlight.

"You were too easy on her," Weiss said, indicating the bundle that was Blake and Yang with a nod of her head as she re-rapped her scarf and pulled her coat's zipper back up.

Ruby stood up, Crescent Rose a dark arc of steel over her shoulder. She'd been turning things over in her mind since the others had gone to bed and still hadn't come up with anything that could fix the way her team had broken. Her voice came out in a thick mumble, "Maybe."

"'Maybe' isn't enough to get us back to Beacon," Weiss seated herself on her pack near the fire, Myrtenaster glinting almost gold in the light as she rested the blade across her lap. Insubordination was a high crime, especially in a situation as dire as theirs, and she wasn't about to sit back and watch Blake take advantage of Ruby's gentle nature.

"Yeah," Ruby didn't want to talk about this. She just wanted everything to be okay. But it wasn't okay. She needed to be able to count on her team- on Blake- and she couldn't do that if anyone picked up and left whenever they felt like it. Not that she hadn't gone off on her own in the past. Mountain Glen had been a thing, and she'd left Weiss in the belltower. She hadn't meant to be gone long, though. Definitely she hadn't planned to be gone for weeks. Her boots scuffed in the snow and her breath hung in the air, "I'll... I'll talk to her again in the morning."

Weiss watched her expression and let the conversation drop. "See you in a few hours."

"Right," Ruby folded her scythe and worked her way into the already warm sleeping bag, laying her weapon at her side for easy access. Weiss stalked to the fire to add a couple of branches. She could have been born here, Ruby thought, with her hair and her eyes like snow and ice in the pine tree shadows. Thinking about Weiss wouldn't help her decide what to do about Blake, though. She rubbed her wrist across her eyes and settled down, but sleep was still slow in coming.

* * *

 **A/N: Defenestrator got a copy of Breath of the Wild this weekend and has been sending me pictures. It looks amazing, and after editing this all I can think is I'd play a RWBY version of that game in a heartbeat. (Not that I wouldn't play the Zelda version in a heartbeat as well. Because I would.)**

 **Stay tuned folks!**

 **\- Fiercesomet**


	33. Seeing Eye to Eye

**A/N: For anyone who is wondering, Breath of the Wild is amazing, and I may or may not be slightly addicted.**

 **Also, Ruby is amazing and I cannot handle how sweet and pure she is aGH my heart.**

 **HUGS,**  
 **D**

* * *

The slide from snow and soft breathing into something darker happened like it had been happening since Blake and Yang had left.

Suddenly, Ruby's chest would seize. It was hard to breathe, and everyone was gone. Almost everyone—she saw a flash of green turn a corner. It wanted her to follow.

"Wait!" She shouted. She was standing in the street, or trying. The ground shook or her legs wouldn't hold her—the panic was too strong for her to tell which. " _Wait!_ "

Either way, she couldn't run, and she was too late anyway. With a deafening _crack_ the asphalt split, the buildings around her started to crumble. Broken rock roared in her ears and dust choked her and got in her eyes till she found herself pinned in the pitch black underground. The panic in her chest ratcheted up a notch, two notches, three, as tiny red pinpricks filled her vision.

A fluttering sound grew in the dark, and the cold, rotten ash smell of Grimm filled her mouth and nose.

Ruby started awake, heart thudding in her chest and hands grabbing for Crescent Rose.

Dawn had turned the sky platinum. It seemed to lean close, almost resting on the mountaintops, threatening to sift down another few feet of snow at any time.

Ruby made herself relax for a minute, clutching her weapon against her chest and running her fingers over its very cold, very real bolts and edges to undo the nightmare. She wasn't going to go back to sleep after that, so she got up and scooped a pot of snow to melt over the remaining embers.

Weiss was awake by the low fire. She watched as Ruby used her bare hands to scoop snow into the pot and kept her voice low, "Bad dreams again?"

"Yeah," Ruby carried the pot over and shook her freezing hands out, rubbing them together by the fire. Nothing made you feel awake like the cold bite of snow.

Weiss waited a handful of seconds in case Ruby wanted to elaborate. When she didn't, she stood and brushed snow off of coat, "I'll collect some more firewood."

Branches snapped and whipped back into place as she trekked through the snow, not bothering to be quiet at all- a passive-aggressive wake-up call if Ruby had ever heard one. She grinned past that sick, post-nightmare feeling she'd just about shaken off and stirred the melting snow. Despite the yelling and cold shoulders, it was really good to see Weiss back to her old self. Especially now that the team was together again.

A particularly loud crack from a slightly larger branch startled Blake into the land of the living, throwing her into a fit of confusion for the seconds it took her memories of last night to catch up. She wasn't trapped, she was in a sleeping bag, they hadn't fallen from their perch in a tree, they'd slept on the ground purposefully, and that sound wasn't a Grimm failing to sneak up on them, it was probably Ruby or Weiss. As her eyes adjusted to the morning light, her mood dropped, unsure whether to feel thankful or disappointed that no one had woken her for a turn at watch.

Carefully, so as not to disturb Yang beneath her, who she noted hadn't moved an inch, Blake started to unzip their sleeping bag. Cold seeped into the warmed space, and she just barely suppressed a squeak of surprise when the brawler's arms tightened around her middle.

"Five more minutes..."

Weiss returned and, noticing the pair's movement, dumped her armload of branches right next to their heads and glared at them while she called to Ruby, "I'll go see what we need to do to fix the sled while you talk to Blake. Unless you want to switch jobs?"

Ruby blanched, setting the pot down to run a hand over her face. Being together again was a good thing… even if it came with a few speed bumps. "No, you go ahead and look. The repair stuff is-"

"It's in the back. I know," Weiss turned, marching through the thick-grown branches to the sled a little farther up the hill. She threw her arms up, "Just hurry up so we can get back on track."

Blake tried her best to ignore Weiss's thinly veiled anger, focusing instead on Yang's sleepy murmuring. The brawler was crushing her in a hug that the Faunus happily noted was two-armed, but as warm and comforting as it was to know her partner was awake and at least somewhat well, it certainly made breathing difficult. "Yang," she whispered, unable to do much other than squirm with her arms pinned to her sides as they were, "Wake up."

Yang sat up without much warning, dragging Blake up along with her in an awkward backbend that fortunately the Faunus's spine was flexible enough to handle. The brawler's head hung forward a bit, bleary eyes struggling to stay open against the sheer exhaustion trying to drag them back shut. "'Kay... 'm up..."

"Yang!" Ruby abandoned the pot over the coals. She put her hand on her sister's forehead, checking to see if her temperature was back up to normal. "Yang, are you alright? Maybe you should lie down again. We'll have breakfast soon."

Yang stared, clearly unfocused and uncomprehending as she looked up at Ruby. Still struggling a bit to free herself, Blake paused when she felt one of the brawler's arms cease squeezing her, leaving the warmth of the sleeping bag through what small portion she'd managed to unzip, seeking out a new target. She watched Yang's arm casually slip around her little sister's waist.

"Ruby," Blake tried to warn her, "I don't think she's-" She was too late - Yang flopped back to the ground, dragging Ruby down with them as she mumbled something incoherent about hugs.

"Rrrg, Yaaang," Ruby's growl was half whine, and it quickly dissolved to breathless laughing against her big, strong, sleepy sister's collar. Eventually, when she was done flailing and kicking snow around (which was about the only thing she could do while trapped in this vice-like grip), she propped herself up on her elbows, practically smashed on top of Blake. "Well, I guess we should go ahead and talk."

Blake stiffened at the subject she'd been most hoping to avoid, but oddly enough, being so thoroughly pressed against both sisters quieted the small voice urging her to run, leaving her instead with a strange sense of quiet resignation. She nodded, waiting for Ruby to speak first.

Ruby took a deep breath.

"Blake, do you still want me to be team leader?" she held up a hand before the dark-haired Faunus under her could respond, "If you say yes, that means you won't leave and go off on your own unless you talk to me first."

"Ruby..." At this proximity there was simply no avoiding staring up into those bright silver eyes. That was it. That was the positive spark she'd been trying to preserve. Caught in Ruby's searching gaze, Blake could feel her reticence to explain slipping inch by inch - there was something about this girl that made it almost impossible not to come clean.

"It's not like that," she started, Faunus ears lowering a notch, "I've never had a problem with you being team leader. I just... I've seen what the burden of that position has done to people." Blake shut her eyes hard against unbidden thoughts of Adam. She'd never be able to handle a change like that in Ruby.

Ruby poked Blake gently between the eyes, "That's why I need you. You think it'll be easier being the leader if I can't count on you guys all the time?"

Amber eyes flew open at the light touch, shining with something distant and fearful as the slow slide of an entire organization into darkness played like a worn out record in her head. "I've never been able to help anyone."

Ruby watched the hurt behind Blake's eyes. She gave her a good-natured nudge, "Well you're going to be able to this time. For starters, Cooking… isn't really a thing that we're good at. At all," Ruby mumbled sheepishly, "Weiss and I have kind of been living off canned baked beans for six days."

Shock flashed across Blake's features, and she simply stared.

Beans?

For a week?

She didn't know whether to laugh at the absurdity of it, or cry at having caused it. So, of course, she did both.

"You're ridiculous," she snickered, wiping away the hot tears that refused to stop falling. She knew she probably looked crazy, but at this point it seemed a fair assessment of how she felt. "I knew I should have found a way to sneak past Yang," she leaned back against the brawler's chest, staring off into space, "Then at least you two wouldn't have tortured yourselves coming all the way out here to find her."

"You would rather have all three of us torture ourselves trying to catch up with just you?" Ruby crossed her arms, perching almost on Blake's collarbone and looking very incredulous. She made a face, like she was eating baked beans all over again, "Well, maybe it wasn't quite torture, but it was kind of bland."

Weiss shoved her way back into the clearing through the pine branches. She stared at her trio of teammates, "Are you done yet? Why are you all lying on the ground?"

"We're trapped," Ruby nodded to Yang's encircling arms. "And we're staying trapped till Blake decides whether to stay on the team and make us breakfast or not."

The Faunus in question shut her eyes, both to avoid the heiress's scrutiny and to simply let everything sink in. Slowly and surely, like a small crack spidering its way through towering walls of stone, warmth encompassed her from above and below, as if both sisters were trying to soothe away a lifetime of negativity with their own relentless reassurance. And though it was a frightening prospect to lose the edge that had kept her safe in harsher surroundings, Blake could feel herself relaxing, defenses lowering in the presence of people that actually wanted her around.

Even after such a dire breach of trust, Ruby had chased her down, not to mete out punishment, but to ask her to stay. It was baffling... but she saw no choice other than to accept it. She was tired of running. Anyway, who was she to deny her leader's request?

Tentatively, Blake took hold of Ruby's hand, ears flattening as she tried to find a good way to express her intent to make amends. Her eyes cracked open, daring to glance up at the younger girl. "...I'll make you all the very the best breakfast I can."

"Yes!" Ruby cheered, throwing her free arm around Blake for a super awkward on the ground hug, after which, she pulled back, assuming a solemn expression (at least it would have been solemn if she could have successfully suppressed her grin), "Remember, by making this breakfast, you're agreeing not to leave, especially without telling the rest of the team. Also, er, Weiss, could you help us get up?"

The icy heiress gave Blake a cold glare and crossed her arms, speaking to her team leader, "Did she apologize?"

Blake's tentative grasp on positivity crumbled, and she shot a far more heated glare right back at Weiss, feeling her hackles rise despite her best efforts to keep her cool. "I'm right here, Weiss. Do you have something to say to me?"

"That depends," Weiss lifted her chin, "You owe Ruby an apology. If you've already given it, then fine. Have you?"

Ruby tried to lever herself out of Yang's grasp, but it didn't work. She'd already seen the regret Blake was holding onto and really didn't want to have to deal with a fight all over again, "Weiss, she doesn't need to say it."

"Yes she does," the heiress's temper flared, "She ignored your decision to wait till morning before taking any drastic action and almost got half the team killed. Plus-" she scowled at Blake, and turned away to manhandle the pot of melting snow, "plus you promised you'd talk to us. That was a long time ago," back when their biggest worry was Torchwick and a ragtag bunch of White Fang members, "and I know you made an attempt at the cabin, but if you're going to go off and do something dangerous despite everyone's better judgment, at least have the decency to tell someone who's staying behind."

"I made several attempts, actually," Blake retorted, her tone having lost most of its ire but none of its edge. "I... didn't see the point of making one more." Looking away again, Blake released Ruby's hand and shifted as best she could to run her fingers across a very specific section of Yang's rib cage, allowing herself a small smile when the brawler's arm instinctively jerked back to protect her side, leaving the Faunus a wide opening to slip from her grasp.

In a flash, Blake was standing behind Yang and Ruby, silently watching her partner crush a shadow clone into wisps of smoke as she muttered something completely unintelligible and turned to wrap both arms around her sister. After an apologetic glance at Ruby, Blake returned her gaze to Weiss, cautiously crossing her arms. "Anyway what would you have wanted me to say? 'I'm leaving?' It's not like you would have just let me go."

"Well it's too late to find out one way or the other, isn't it?" Weiss ground the pot into the coals and stood up, "We've been worried sick and practically driving ourselves into the ground to catch up with you, so apologize."

A few smooth strides brought Blake standing face to face with Weiss. From her new position, it was much easier to search the heiress's eyes, to see the hurt hiding behind the anger and ice. Caught off guard, Blake uncrossed her arms. "I thought... you two might try to follow us if we left a message..." She glanced back at Ruby, still struggling to free herself from Yang's grasp. "But it looks like you would have tracked us down either way."

"Obviously," Weiss said, her tone guarded and her shoulders square. "Are you going to apologize or not?"

Turning her gaze back to Yang, Blake stubbornly held her silence. Before too long, her ears flattened and she regarded Weiss with caution. "If I apologize... will you forgive us?"

The heiress's defenses wavered as her glance followed Blake's to Yang and back. She picked bits of snow from her sleeve, scowling to mask her surprise, "... you want me to?"

Blake squared her shoulders to match Weiss's poise. "Yes."

Ruby, still crushed in her sister's sleeping embrace, held her breath while she watched Weiss weigh the cost of forgiving her teammate. Probably she didn't get asked for it often, and there'd been a lot of ice in her tone all week whenever they talked about Blake and Yang.

Finally, Weiss crossed her arms, still glaring at Blake, "Then apologize to us and promise to never do this again."

It burned, it stung, and it tasted bitter, but for the sake of harmony within the team, Blake swallowed her pride and accepted that her actions, while well-intentioned, had ultimately been a mistake. She would do whatever it took to begin repairing the bonds she'd broken.

Head held high and Faunus ears standing at full attention, she met Weiss's glare, taking a moment to compose herself with a deep breath. "I promise this will never happen again. I'm... I'm sorry I hurt you," she glanced back at Ruby, "both of you."

"Blake..." Ruby sounded halfway between touched and strangled. Weiss ignored her.

"You're an idiot sometimes," her expression towards Blake softened a little, "but welcome back. Also, you're still making breakfast, right?"

Blake nodded once, clearly hesitant in her move to lay a tentative hand on Weiss's shoulder. "I'll need help foraging." She didn't really need help. "Come with me?"

Weiss looked at Blake like she was speaking a different language, "I can show you where the supplies are in the sled?"

Ruby, meanwhile, had finally managed to wriggle free of Yang's grasp by leaving her cloak behind.

"Yaaaaang..." she watched her sister, who was very warm, snuggle her cloak, which was also very warm. A cutting wind sighed through the trees. She shivered, rubbing her arms, "I'll build up the fire and plan the route while you're gone."

"That sounds good," Blake half-smiled at Ruby, then proceeded to gently tug at Weiss's arm, walking past her and beckoning her deeper into the forest. "Come on. I'll show you where nature keeps her supplies."

Ruby waved as Blake took an extremely skeptical Weiss off to search for food in the snow.

"Guess it's just the two of us for a little while," she said to Yang and crouched to start building up the fire. Drei was at her side immediately, breathing hot dog breath in her face. Ruby shoved him back, laughing a little, "Bleah! Alright, three of us."

She scratched Drie's ears absently as she watched Yang's easy breathing, "Feel better soon, big sis."


	34. Together Breakfast

'Soon' ended up being roughly three hours later, though Yang's return to consciousness still came by degrees. Every inch closer to clarity was a fight against overwhelming exhaustion, the sheer amount of energy spent on recovery muddling her senses to a dreamlike degree.

She always recognized touch first, warmth especially, and it surrounded her, along with the vague notion that her head was in someone's lap. Sound came next, two familiar voices that were coming closer, getting louder, disturbing her rest. Yang grumbled, trying to turn away from the noise but finding her body heavier than lead.

Though a small part of her told her she had been asleep for a good while and she should probably just get up already, she was comfortable, all she wanted to do was sleep even more, and trying to open her eyelids felt tantamount to lifting a Goliath one-handed. Somehow, she managed a few choice words to further her cause. "Shut up... so loud..."

Ruby jumped, dropping Yang's head on the thin layer of pine needles and spooking Drei, who she'd been trying to get to come act as a pillow. "Yang!"

"Don't pretend it was an accident. Y-you knew that stream wasn't completely frozen!" came the shivering, spluttering accusations from a certain Schnee. She came stumbling through the branches hiding their campsite, bits of ice falling from her hair and coat as she stripped the soaked and rapidly freezing garment off.

Blake followed close by, a bundle of plants wrapped with her ribbon in one arm, and the other arm sporting Gambol Shroud, spearing their decently sized flayed and gutted catch of fish. "To be fair, I honestly didn't think you'd be heavy enough to-"

"Too early ughh-" Yang rolled onto her stomach to avoid Drei sniffing at her, pine-needles and grass stuck out of her hair at odd angles.

Blake nearly dropped her haul at hearing her partner's voice.

"I'm gonna assume that's the dog licking my face," Yang mumbled into the ground, too tired to bother pushing Drei away from his current mission of giving her a tongue bath.

"Yep," Ruby got her hands around Drei's collar and pulled him back. Weiss was mad because she was wet? And being wet in sub-freezing temperatures was not good. But Yang was awake! Not quite sure of where to go from there, she blurted out, "You're up just in time for Blake to make us breakfast."

"Does she feel like doing that thing where she's unbearably warm?" Weiss was down to a damp undershirt and pair of pants as she huddled close to the fire, teeth chattering, "because that would be great right now."

Ruby dragged Drei over, but dropped his collar when she saw the true state of her partner, "Weiss, you're soaked!"

"How very observant of you," the heiress glared at her, rubbing her arms over the ice-stiff sleeves of her undershirt to try and keep warm by the low fire, "Also don't go ice fishing with Blake."

Blake rolled her eyes, pulling a fish from her sword and tossing it to the dog to distract him. "What she means to say is, 'Thank you Blake for helping pull me out of the water.'" She looked to her partner, torn between rushing to greet her and starting breakfast as she'd promised. "Yang," she called, setting the bundle of washed plants in the pot beside Weiss and unloading Gambol Shroud's clip, "Hurry up and get over here so I can give you a proper hug."

That did the trick. The brawler immediately pushed herself up off the ground, twisting and making it all the way to sitting before she had to stop. "If... if you insist," she put a hand to her head, but it didn't keep the world from spinning. "Be right there..."

"I want a hug too! Save one for me!" Ruby called after she'd thrown a bunch of wood on the fire. She disappeared in the direction of the sled, rose petals scattering across the frozen ground.

Weiss turned to thaw out her back and get some of the ice out of her hair. "I swear, Blake, if you don't start breakfast soon I'll... ah..."

She tried to smother a violent sneeze, with mixed results.

"Ugh..." she mopped at her nose with her frozen sleeve ineffectually, the picture of misery, "J-just hurry up."

Blake allowed herself a small half-smile with a roll of the eyes for good measure, already holding the fish speared on Gambol shroud near the hearty flame Ruby had built up. She nudged the pot of water and plants closer to the edge of the flame as well, confident that her ribbon could easily withstand a bit of boiling.

"Hey, sweet." Yang's voice stole her partner's attention away from cooking, and Blake looked over to see the brawler up on her feet, stretching out both arms. The holes that had once riddled her right arm had healed up nicely, along with those endless cuts and scrapes, but she was still streaked with an uncomfortable amount of red.

After realizing the futility of trying to brush herself off, Yang made a beeline to Blake, wrapping her in a bone-crushing hug from behind.

"Yang, that's cheating," Blake chided with a smirk, struggling a bit to hold the fish steady, "I'm supposed to give you the hug."

"Yeah well your arms are occupied."

"And sadly they are going to stay occupied until breakfast is ready," the Faunus lightly bumped her head against Yang's, "Anyway there is someone else who could use a bit of warmth right now."

Yang followed Blake's gaze to Weiss, and she released her partner at once, moving to sit beside the shivering heiress and pull her into an embrace.

"I would yell at you for touching me but I'm too cold," Weiss allowed Yang to side-hug her, still sniffling after her sneeze. "I will bill you if you get bloodstains on my shirt. Just so you know."

The torn sleeping bag, now serving as a blanket, dropped over the pair's shoulders, the edges tattered and ripped. Ruby plopped down next to them, checking Weiss to make sure she was getting warm before turning to the fire where she regarded Blake's skewered catch with awe, "You actually got fish? Are they almost ready?"

"Yes, and..." Blake turned the fish a bit, "yes."

Ruby leaned almost into the fire to watch the silver skin crackle. Her stomach felt like it was trying to turn itself inside out. "How soon?"

"As soon as you bring me my sheath to put these on," her smile to Ruby was as warm as the fire, "Unless you want to try holding a burning hot fish in your hands."

"I could do it," Yang mumbled into Weiss's shoulder.

"Or you could shut up and keep me from freezing to death," Weiss hmphed, shifting uncomfortably under the intimacy of having Yang hanging all over her.

Ruby, meanwhile, zipped to her pack and reappeared with a meager stack of tin plates, which she presented to Blake, "We've got dishes we can use instead!"

Blake eyed the tin plates, inexplicably touched that Ruby had packed a full set of four. She took them and laid them in a line, placing a fish on each. The roots and greens would still take a little bit, but they could at least start with this. "Well, here you go," she presented the plates without much flourish.

Ruby couldn't remember the last time she'd smelled anything as good as this. Her mouth watered so badly she could hardly eat at first. The fish was gone in record time. She didn't even take off her gloves.

Despite a fit of shivering, Weiss managed to squirm out of Yang's hug and get her frozen-solid pack. One of the pockets yielded a fork, and she cut her food into measured bites, taking pains to avoid the bones. Yang leaned heavily on Weiss, pouring out heat and picking absentmindedly at her food while she tried not to doze off again.

"Don't expect me to force feed you the way you did me," Weiss grumbled to Yang, holding her plate steady for her, "because I won't."

"You wouldn't have to force..." Yang rested her head on Weiss's shoulder, eyes heavy and limbs heavier.

"Okay, Blake, you are officially the camp cook until further notice," Ruby announced after clearing her throat from nearly choking herself on a prickly fish rib bone. She pulled a heavy piece of folded paper from her combat skirt's hidden pocket. The color wasn't faded, but the edges were worn from handling along the folds, and one corner looked like something had been spilled on it. Her grin slipped momentarily as she looked at Blake, "Uh, I mean, you're the cook if you don't mind. Do you mind?" she opened up the creased paper, smoothing it flat on her knee, "Also, here's where we're headed next. I've got a route picked out, but since you've seen a lot of the mountains too, tell me what you think?"

Blake looked up from her fish - she had pulled away its entire backbone in once piece, and was methodically removing the remaining pin bones. "I don't mind at all," she nudged Ruby's shoulder with her own, leaning closer with the movement to get a good look at their surprisingly detailed map. Her team leader's fish-juice covered finger marked their apparent destination, a point on the map that looked like a small house. "What is that?"

"It's a way-station," Ruby wiped her hand off on her leggings, frowning over her own choice of words, "er, way-cabin? It's a place people can stay on their way through the mountains. Travelers or hunters, or huntresses. The villagers told us they sometimes keep a little food and ammunition there, in case someone's in trouble."

Blake perked at the possibility of extra ammunition, but a glance at her drooping partner set her mouth in a thin line. They were definitely going to need that sled fixed. She gave the map another once-over, noting the clever placement of the cabin right near a river, likely the same river that ran through the pond she and Weiss had found. Blake looked to Ruby, giving a small nod of agreement. "That sounds like something worth looking into."

"Yeah," Ruby grinned at Blake and glanced to check on Yang and Weiss (the latter was grumpily spreading her frozen coat and clothes over the former to thaw and dry).

Boy, it was good to have the team together again.

Ruby scooted a little closer to the fire, tracing a path out on the paper she'd laid over her knees, "Anyway, there's kind of a path, but Curtis was saying it's usually full of Grimm, so I thought we could go this way instead..."

* * *

It took an hour to finish planning, eating, and repacking. By then, Weiss's clothes were no longer sheets of ice and in fact had a pleasant fresh-from-the-dryer warmth about them, so the heiress was back in good spirits and focused on icing over the hole punched in the bottom of the sled.

"It should hold until at least until Yang's recovered enough to bend it back properly," she said as she checked and rechecked the ropes holding their gear and cargo in the back.

Ruby hunted up Drei, who'd been snuffling around among the pine trees, probably looking for mice or little hibernating critters, and she got him all hooked up to the traces in the front. He was a lot less interested in being attached to the sled than he was in begging Blake for more fish, though.

"Hey!" Weiss yelped, gripping the metal edge of the sled as the large dog pulled the entire thing sideways towards Blake and Yang.

Blake glanced up from her task, dampened cloth paused over one of the final remaining streaks of red marring her partner's face. She nudged Yang, who had dozed off again, gesturing with her eyes to their incoming canine companion. Yang's smile grew as the distance between them decreased. "Hey, hey buddy~" she called, diverting his attention from the plate beside her and into her waiting arms instead. She buried her hands in Drei's fur, pressing her face to his head in a failed attempt to avoid getting licked where Blake had just cleaned.

One of Blake's ears flicked in annoyance. She took the fish remains from the tin plate, a delicate twist and snap removing the fish's head from its spine. "Here you go, bye," she tossed the head over to the edge of the sled, feeling only the smallest amount of remorse at the disappointed sound Yang made when Drei abandoned ear scratches in favor of chasing down the tasty morsel.

Yang's pout stretched into a yawn. She shook her head, looking between Ruby and Weiss. "Is it time to go?"

"Yep!" Ruby said, hands braced confidently on her hips while Drei hauled the sled sharply sideways to get at the fish head, bowling Weiss over in the snow. She rubbed her arm, a little shy of all the bloody rags on the snow next to her sister, "You, uh, feel okay to move?"

"Yeah! Yeah I'm good," Yang pushed herself to her feet, teetering just a bit.

Blake stood and caught her arm, raising a brow.

"Uh, good enough anyway," she rubbed the back of her head, looking sheepish. "Sorry I haven't been able to help out much."

"Don't worry about that," Ruby went to help straighten the sled out, laughing as she helped a slightly less-chipper Weiss out from under it. "Just get better, okay? And let's go! It'll be great to sleep someplace with a roof for once. Ooh, maybe there'll be beds too."

Blake side-eyed Yang, who was already yawning again. Beds sounded like an _excellent_ idea.

* * *

 **A/N: I am also feeling sleepy because egads hiking 7 miles is surprisingly tiring. How do these girls do it?!**

 **Hugs!**

 **D**


	35. A Small Surprise

There were no beds.

In fact, there was barely even a roof. The low stone structure clung to the ridge that it was built into. It had crumbling concrete walls with even corners (where they hadn't crumbled away) and level (but blocked up) windows. It was like the buildings in Vale, except ancient and half-destroyed. A quarter of the front wall was gone. The re-bar and iron beams that formed its skeleton shed huge flakes of rust when Ruby brushed her hand over them. Inside, the place was bare and dark. Cases that could have held bullets or food were scattered and broken. Some of the ammo was scattered across the icy floor. Ruby's flashlight beam found a series of stains much darker than the ones from the rust.

"Well..." she grimaced, looking around in case there were any other structures among the snow-dusted ridges.

"It's a death trap," Weiss pronounced at once. The fading light of twilight showed through a roof full of holes. "A concrete roof? We do not need that to fall on us in the middle of the night."

"There's something to be said for sleeping under the stars," Blake added, eyeing the decaying structure with distrust. "Maybe we could use those broken cases as fuel for a fire?" she tried to offer at least something positive.

"Someone say fire?" Yang rolled over from her position curled up in the back of the sled, trying to rub the sleep from her eyes. "I'm on it, what do you need lit..."

Ruby sighed. She'd really been looking forward to beds, or at least a bat-proof roof, but those bloodstains really did make her skin crawl. "I guess we'd be leaving tomorrow anyway."

She and Weiss had setting up camp down to a science, and in fifteen minutes (with Yang's help) they had a cheery broken-crate board fire going on the sheltered side of the derelict building. The wind shushed through the scrub pines that clung down near the meager, frozen stream at the foot of the ridge.

Blake likewise had mastered the art of ice-fishing, but even she was surprised at the size of the one fish she managed to catch - the thing had to be at least the size of her arm. It took longer to cook as a result, giving the team a chance to rest around the fire as the fish hung suspended high over the flames, held in place by a simple contraption of sticks and string that Ruby had whipped up on request.

The night was quiet, save for the occasional crackle and pop whenever a bit of juice dripped from the fish into the licks of flame beneath it. It gave Blake space to think, whether she wanted to or not. She tried to distract herself, eyes wandering to each teammate sitting around the fire. Ruby and Yang sat across from her and Weiss. The heiress was just under an arm's length away with her back to the fire, resting her head and arms on knees tucked up to her chin.

Blake wondered if it was just her imagination, but it felt like Weiss had been sticking unusually close since their tenuous reconciliation - probably paranoid that Blake would run again, not that she could blame her. Yang on the other hand, had stuck to Ruby like glue the entire day - at least, whenever she was awake. Currently, the brawler had an arm around her little sister's shoulders, visibly dozing. Ruby was staring into the fire. Blake tried to catch her eyes, temporarily mesmerized by reflected reds and golds flickering against a backdrop of silver.

Finally, Blake gave in and asked the question that had been plaguing her for weeks. "So, what are we going to tell them?... When we get back to Beacon, I mean."

Ruby had been thinking out their move for the next day. She looked up from the fire, a little puzzled. "... about what happened?"

"She means are we going to cover for Yang," Weiss turned to face the fire again. She'd regained her appetite and her aura had recovered for the most part, but she still tired pretty easily, and the long days left her wiped out.

Blake bristled, eyes darting to Yang, who had fallen silent. "That's... that's not what I meant." It had been exactly what she meant, but she would never admit to anything with such an unseemly choice of wording.

"We'll talk to Professor Ozpin," Ruby snuggled closer to her sister, working an arm around her. "It'll..." be okay? Memories of that night, the ravaged houses, the thick sharp smell of blood and ash, clogged her throat. She tried again, "He'll know what to do. Nobody thought there'd be that many."

"We should still be careful what we say," Blake attempted to steer the subject elsewhere, ears flattening a bit. "We still don't know what the deal is with those rogue Atlas machines."

"That was strange," Weiss raised her chin from her knees, brow furrowed, "I mean, in terms of quality current Atlas technology obviously couldn't replace a huntress or huntsman, but I've never heard of an entire ship full of them breaking down like that."

"Guys, he wouldn't have sent broken robots to try and find us," Ruby's lopsided grin slipped a little as she realized... he wouldn't have sent robots at all. At least, she didn't think he would. Not unless there wasn't anyone else to send. "I guess we'll have to wait and see what happens when we get back."

Blake simply nodded, dropping the subject altogether. She chanced another glance at her partner, gritting her teeth at the solemn expression still clouding her features. She wished she could think of anything to say that might bring a smile back to Yang's face, but under duress of fatigue and hunger she found her words utterly lacking. That is - until she checked on the fish. "Looks like dinner's ready."

* * *

It was a long night.

The way-station turned out to be a hot-spot for the beowolves in the area- Ruby tried not to disturb the others while she was on watch, but every now and again, the Grimm would try to sneak up to the ruined building from its far side and she would have to clear them out.

Funny, actually, how they always approached from the far side. Ruby picked shell casings out of the snow, stacking them in a pyramid to pass the time. The path wasn't as steep on the sheltered side. But Grimm were Grimm- maybe they'd figured it was worth the steep climb if they could have the element of surprise. Not that they ever did have the element of surprise, but they kept trying. And fighting them in real life was way better than being stuck in a nightmare.

She needed rest, though. Her hand shook, knocking her pyramid over again. She watched Yang and Blake sleep for a bit, feeling warm and glad that they were back. Then, hesitating a little, she moved to get Weiss up for her turn at watch.

All but invisible in the pressing dark of night, a single Faunus ear twitched towards the exchange. Blake frowned into Yang's shoulder, realizing that they would both be skipped over for a chance at watch again. Pessimism told her there was obviously a lingering issue of trust, but a budding seed of optimism kept her from reading anything into it.

Burrowing into her partner's warmth to escape the cold, Blake allowed herself to fall back asleep, but not before promising herself she would offer to take a turn at watch tomorrow.

* * *

The pale sun touched the high ridges first, easing its way down the slopes to RWBY's camp at the way-station midway to the valley floor. The derelict building looked even more decrepit in the light, its concrete walls spiderwebbed with cracks. Still, there was a doorway inside, in the back corner, implying a lower level, which could possibly hold more in the way of supplies. The plan was to check it out after they broke camp.

"Ruby," Weiss finished securing the supplies in the back of the sled, her brow furrowed. She turned to her partner, whose footsteps crunched in the churned up and refrozen snow, "Did any of the Grimm you saw on watch... get into the sled?"

"Huh?" Ruby looked up from fidgeting with Crescent Rose. "Um... I don't think so. Why?"

"I could have sworn we had another two cans of..." Weiss's mouth set in a thin line as she dug through the debris in the bottom of the sled to look for loose supplies.

"Done over here," Blake called from beside a pile of dirt and snow that used to be their campfire.

Yang was already standing with Drei beside the crumbling building, brows disappearing into her hairline when a slight nudge from Drei's sniffing nose dislodged a chunk of wall. She looked to Ruby, eyes bright and ready for action after two full nights (and roughly a half day) of sleep. "So, are we all going in, or is one of us gonna stick around out here to dig out the others when this whole deal collapses?"

"Buddy system sound okay?" Ruby dusted snow off her gloves. Weiss was still busy fussing with the stuff in the sled, so Ruby leaned past Yang, "Blake?"

The Faunus came forward to stand beside her team leader, brushing a few final traces of dirt from her sleeves. "Superior low light vision, at your service."

Yang snickered, her hands coming to rest on a head of dark hair each. "You two be careful though, okay? Unlike this guy here," she nudged Drei with her foot, "I will be very very sad if there is any need for digging in my immediate future."

"We'll be fine," Ruby laughed, shoving Yang's hand away as she led the way through what remained of the crumbling doorframe, "Don't let Weiss unpack the whole sled again."

As she stepped into the dim interior, the hair on the back of her neck prickled up. The red on the walls was black and frozen, a lot of looked like it was on top of the snow. Some of the crates lacked the fine dusting that covered the sheltered stones outside. On some, the layer of powder had been disturbed.

Blake gave her partner a soft smile, patting her arm before following after Ruby. The Faunus cut straight to the chase, making a silent beeline for the door still standing in the back of the room. Dark molding wood, black lever style handle, hinges red with rust - she tested the handle - unlocked. Ever cautious, she closed her eyes and pressed her ears to the door, shifting all her focus into listening.

Silence.

"Do you hear anything?" Ruby whispered, her ear against the door as well.

In truth, Blake heard quite a few things - the low whistle of wind through the floorboards, the distant crunch of snow from Yang and Weiss's boots, even the soft easy breaths of her team leader right beside her - but from beyond the door? "Nothing," she stepped out of the way, gently easing the door open. It didn't creak.

Rickety would be too kind of a word to describe the stairs leading downwards, ending in a darkness deep enough that it gave even Blake's Faunus eyes a bit of trouble. Blake arched a brow at Ruby. "So... can you see the stairs all right?"

Ruby looked a little pale—something about going underground… but she shook it off and reached behind her back and popped the hacked night-vision scope off of Crescent Rose. She held it to her eye like a spyglass, saluting with her free hand, "Aye-aye-" she pulled it away again, "... er... well, actually I guess I'm the captain. But yeah. Here I'll get the door."

The metal grating the stairs were made of had almost rusted through. Ruby picked her way down, ready to grab the equally rusted railing if things got dicey. She swept the area with her scope from the bottom step.

The basement was as much a wreck as the uppers story. Crates lay everywhere, some open and discarded, some smashed entirely. There were counters and shelving units set into the concrete walls, some of which held boxes that looked undisturbed.

"At least it's kind of warmer down here," she murmured over her shoulder, watching for red eyes in the dark. Geothermal heat usually got a 5-star rating in her book of cool, but this time it meant the cold hadn't quite killed the smell of whatever had happened. Her heart dropped when she spotted a pile of rags in the corner that looked suspiciously person-shaped. "Blake..."

The Faunus in question halted right behind her leader, eyes and ears on full alert. She tracked Ruby's line of sight to the moderately well-hidden person lying on the floor. Their quick shallow breaths would have been all but inaudible to a human's ears at this distance.

Uncertain whether they'd found a survivor or the aggressor, Blake drew her sword, the action completely and utterly silent, a function she'd built in to Gambol Shroud that she'd always been proud of. Motioning to the lump of rags with her head, she nodded to Ruby and fell back into a defensive stance.

Ruby swallowed and edged towards the corner, The pale light from the stairwell wasn't enough to maneuver by, so she watched whatever it was on the floor as she picked her way between the wrecked boxes. Ruby cringed when her cloak caught the edge of a tin can and sent it clattering on the concrete floor.

The long bundle in the corner gave a small shudder. Something about it looked unnatural, like the proportions weren't quite right for it to actually be a human, but there was a shoulder, and definitely a leg, as if the person had just collapsed and not moved since. Ruby paused a few feet from it and hazarded, "Hey, are you okay?"

Now that she was close, she could hear a small whimpering. The misshapen figure remained very still.

The tiny sound triggered Ruby's need to act. She leaned down, reaching with her free hand to touch the figure's shoulder. "Can you talk to me?"

The figure didn't move an inch- its shoulder was stiff and cold. Suddenly, though, the whimpers turned to high-pitched, terrified growls, and something slammed into Ruby's stomach. Ruby yelped and dropped her scope, flailing her arms and crashing backwards into a pile of boxes in the dark as she tried to defend herself from a second attack... a second attack that never came.

Blake was between them in the blink of an eye, as if she'd always been crouched there, low, coiled, inches from attacking.

A curious scent stopped her cold, giving Blake the time to really look at their so-called aggressor. Slowly, with movements smooth as silk, she lowered her weapon, setting her sword on the ground.

"Ruby, this is..." Blake couldn't quite find the right words, so she just held out both of her hands to the small shaking figure, schooling her voice into a soft whisper. "It's okay. You're safe now."

It burrowed closer to the larger figure in the corner, its whimpers muffled.

Ruby struggled up from the pile of crushed cardboard and splintered crates, feeling for her lost scope, "What is it?"

"It's... it's a little girl," Blake kept her tone low and soothing, kneeling down in an effort to look less imposing, "I don't think her..." Mother? Father? A well-meaning stranger? Blake couldn't tell from this angle, not without pulling back the pile of rags. It had been so long since she'd seen a dead body she'd almost forgotten the unpleasant way it always made her stomach lurch. "Her guardian didn't make it."

Ruby's hand closed over her scope and she scurried to Blake's side to see that, yeah, there was a small, terrified kid huddled up to a larger person-shaped bundle. Mouth suddenly dry, she took another look around the dark space, eyes lighting on the tin can she'd knocked over earlier. It was misshapen and bent, with jagged edges at the top like it had been broken into by it being stabbed and pried with something. There was another on the floor that looked dented and mangled- she picked it up and took it to the light.

Baked beans.

Was this part of the supply here, or...?

"Hey, I'm going to go get the can opener- I'll be right back," Ruby took the stairs two at a time.

* * *

 **A/N: So in slightly sad news, my laptop died but then came back as some strange zombie-like shell of its former self. Still not sure what happened to the poor little guy, but well, it's basically a paperweight now, so writing is a tiny bit harder with the added constraint of sharing the main desktop...**

 **No worries though! I always play games in hard mode! Hahha sob.**

 **Anyway stay tuned, and it's been a while since I've said it so THANKS AGAIN for reading and y'all are the best!  
**

 **Hugs,  
** **D**


	36. Coaxing

Weiss frowned down at the valley floor from her perch on the side of the sled. She'd long since given up finding the missing cans. Who needed more baked beans anyway? She shuddered even thinking about it and went back to frowning.

The landscape below was snowy and overgrown, but she could pick out a series of oddly straight breaks in the snow through the breaks in the scrub trees, as if this particular valley grew a crop of particularly geometrically pleasing stones. More likely it was another set of ruins.

She brushed ice crystals from the edge of the sled. Mountain Glen. The Emerald Forest. How many ruins did Vale have, exactly?

Would James Point be added to the list?

Ruby appeared at the sled's side in a flurry of rose-petals, holding- one of the missing cans!

"Where did you-" Weiss started as Ruby dug through her carefully packed supplies.

Ruby grabbed a can opener and called to her and Yang as she ran back into the way-station, "We found a kid!"

"Wait what?" Yang's head popped up from where she'd been stretched out in the sled, watching for any sign of aerial attack. "A kid?" Ruby had already vanished into the building, so she aimed her look of alarm at Weiss instead, "Like... a _kid?_ "

It was a miracle Ruby didn't crash through the rusted stairs as she raced back into the dark, trying to use the can opener as she went.

"Blake, here," she offered her the can after she'd removed the sharp top.

The savory-sweet smell of baked beans hit Blake like a fist to the face, prompting a raised brow from the Faunus as she took the can and examined it for a moment. How Weiss and Ruby had survived off of these was beyond her.

Still, Ruby's idea was sound, and Blake held the food out, close to the ground. "Hey... here... Are you hungry?"

Ruby stayed back. Now that her eyes had adjusted and she knew what she was looking at, she could make out the girl's shape better. Small fingers- too small to go with the bulky jacket that hid most of the rest of her- clutched at her guardian's clothes.

As Blake held the food out, little girl's whimpering quieted down some. Her hair was a matted mess, crammed down on her head by a thick knit cap. She shifted her head to peek at Blake.

"Hi there," Blake offered a warm smile, setting the can on the ground and nudging it forward. "Come on... this is for you."

The food drew the kid's attention like a magnet. Sniffling, she remained huddled till Blake had withdrawn a bit. Everything was quiet and dark in the basement for a few seconds.

When nothing bad happened, the girl snatched the can and shrank into the corner as much as she could, plainly terrified. Hunger overcame that, though, and she ate with her hands, only pausing to wipe her nose on her too-long sleeve.

Ruby turned to Blake, giving her a thumbs-up even though it felt like someone had put her chest in a vice. Losing a mom or a dad... or both. Ruby knew what that was like, and this kid would too. She couldn't let herself think about it now, though, so she got up from the floor, dusting off her combat skirt as she asked Blake softly, "Well, I guess someone should kind of look through these boxes. You need anything?"

A hug. Blake needed a hug, and she needed to not think about all the other children she'd seen just like this. Menagerie, Atlas, and now the mountains of Vale. Rather than voicing any of this, Blake shook her head, turning a bit to lean against the wall. "Let me know if you want more," she spoke to the little girl, shutting her eyes and letting her ears keep track of her surroundings.

Ruby poked through the boxes in the dark. Some were empty. Some were full of trash and junk. A couple had a can or two of random food- peaches and cranberry sauce, when she took them over to the stairwell to read the labels. She left them for someone more desperate. On a high shelf, she turned up a can opener, which she plunked into the food box, and some equipment for fletching arrows. Too bad no one on Team RWBY needed arrows at all.

Eventually, Weiss's voice came down the stairwell, "Is everything alright?"

"Yeah," Ruby called back, sliding a heavy box out from under a counter and prying the lid off.

Bingo.

Ammunition.

"Yeah, things are okay," Ruby turned to check on Blake and the little girl.

When Weiss had called down, the small girl had crept over closer to Blake, crouched down and holding very still, like she could hide behind her if anyone came down the stairs. She still had the tin can in her hands, even though it was empty.

Blake had opened her eyes at the scraping shuffles of the girl inching closer. The empty can caught her attention first. "Ruby, is there more f-"

"Guys?" Yang's voice called down the stairs, naturally louder than Weiss's, "You need our help down there?"

Ruby watched the little girl shrink smaller against the wall and against Blake. She called up the stairwell, "Hang on a second!"

She plopped down on the floor a few feet from Blake and the girl, "Hey, want to go up and get something else to eat?"

The girl didn't look at her, and also didn't look up at Blake, but she clung to her sleeve.

Blake glanced at Ruby, taking her idea and running with it. She leaned a little bit closer to the girl and whispered with a smile, "Do you like fish?"

The girl didn't say anything, or even nod yes or no.

Well, it had been worth a shot. Worry gnawed at Ruby as she realized they were sitting in what was essentially this girl's guardian's tomb. She caught Blake's eye and mimed scooping the girl up so they could get her out of here.

Blake nodded, eyes darting from Ruby to her sword and back in a silent request for its retrieval. "All right," she spoke to the girl, daring to loop the arm she was clinging to around her shoulders, "It's time to go, okay?" Without waiting for a response, Blake gathered the girl into her arms, whisking her off the ground with very little effort, but extraordinary care.

The girl's arms shifted to cling around Blake's neck. She hid her face in Blake's hair.

Ruby gave Blake two big thumbs up, calling over her shoulder as she backed to the stairs, "We're coming up!"

* * *

The rickety stairs held. Ruby held the door for Blake, which meant being unable to shield herself from Weiss's ire. The heiress stood just beyond the building's entrance, fists clenched so hard she was shaking. "Ruby Rose, do you have any idea how long you've been- don't try to shush me! What's-"

"Hey! Are they back?" Yang cut into Weiss's tirade, popping into the door frame right behind her, nearly impaling herself on the heiress's hair piece in her haste to peer over her head, "Ruby! What's all this about a..." the brawler's words and the energy behind them petered off at the sight of Blake topping the stairs - a sooty bundle of black wrapped in her arms.

"A kid..."

The little girl just clung to Blake, her head hidden against her neck. In the sun, Ruby could see what bad shape she was in. Her hair was matted, coated with ashes till it was gray and streaky black, almost like she'd been sleeping in a fireplace. All her clothes were that way too, though some of the muted browns and blues stubbornly showed through the grime.

Weiss's brows physically couldn't go any higher as she stepped to the side so Blake could get through the doorway.

Ruby followed Blake out, wiping soot from her hands on her leggings. They'd have to check the girl over for injuries, and get her some more food for sure.

"So," she said, "I guess we'll have a passenger for a while."

Even the dog came over to investigate, but Blake said nothing, deftly avoiding Drei's curious sniffing nose as she did her best to soothe the shaking girl in her arms by means of a low steady purr rumbling deep in her chest. She heard Yang grab the dog by his collar and approach them from behind.

"Come on," the brawler rested her free hand on Blake's unoccupied shoulder, watching the little girl with an unreadable expression, "let's get her cleaned up."

* * *

Armed with a shorn-off scrap of the ruined sleeping bag, and the small metal soup pot filled with snow, Blake and Yang sat together on the ground, pondering their most recent roadblock to cleaning up their new charge - the little girl refused to let go of Blake.

"Ooh, oh I got it," Yang grabbed a handful of snow and held it out, trying to catch the little girl's eyes, "Hey, wanna see a cool trick?" She called up her semblance, and the snow melted in an instant, dripping from her hand back into the pot. "Ta-daa!"

The girl clung harder and bit Blake on the shoulder, possibly out of fear and possibly as another way to hold on.

Blake's eyes went wide at the feel of teeth clamping down on her - not hard enough to really hurt, but hard enough for her aura to kick in. She raised a brow at Yang. "It seems your magnificent display has succeeded... in getting me eaten."

"What?!" Distress in her eyes, Yang scrambled forward to examine Blake's tiny aggressor, "Hey now, no eating my partner, she's the only one I've got," the brawler placed a warm hand on the little girl's forehead, applying the barest suggestion of pressure to try and coax her away from her quest to become a cannibal.

The girl kept her eyes shut and bit harder through Blake's coat, whimpering.

"You have such a way with children," Weiss deadpanned as she lugged another container of ammunition to the sled.

Yang's eyes rolled in a perfect arc, "Yeah well I don't see you offering much help here, princess!"

"Yang, it's fine," Blake disguised a flinch as a smirk. The little girl's teeth were surprisingly sharp by virtue of their tiny size. "How about we give her something other than my shoulder to eat?"

Yang stared for a moment, then removed her hand to snap her fingers. "Right, food. Hey Ruby!" she called in the general direction of the sled, "Are there any of those crackers left?"

Ruby's head popped up over the side. She'd been filing down some of the rough spurs left from when the metal got punctured by that Goliath's spike. "Is she hungry again? Hang on."

Weiss crunched over through the snow, arms crossed as she frowned warily at the dirty bundle in Blake's arms, "... is she... biting you?"

"Yes." Blake answered with only a half glance at Weiss, she was more focused on trying to move the stray strands of hair out of the little girl's face. The hat was getting in the way.

Yang squinted at her partner, "Are you normally this nonchalant about being bitten?"

Blake shrugged the shoulder that wasn't currently weighed down with teeth. "She's probably just scared." She frowned when her fingers caught in a particularly nasty tangle of dark matted curls beneath the girl's hat. "Weiss, you didn't happen to bring a brush or comb along, did you?"

Weiss glanced at the girl's hair, a look of disgust crossing her features, "... I think Ruby has one she's not using."

"What am I not using?" Ruby crouched down by Blake, a packet of crackers in hand as she patted the little girl's shoulder gently, "Heya, you doing okay?" she smoothed back her hair and hat, "Where's your face? Where- oh, uh-"

In her smoothing, she'd swept the girl's knitted hat off, revealing a patch of hair relatively uncontaminated by the soot and dirt coating the rest of her. It was rusty red, and right at the top a pair of dark colored ears lay clamped to her skull. They were pointed, a bit larger and more pronounced than Blake's.

Blake's own ears flattened in painful sympathy. She could feel the girl shrinking against her at the sudden exposure - a frazzled line of tension drawn taut and ready to snap. Had this girl's guardian hidden her Faunus traits, hoping that if a band of more prejudiced humans found her they might not leave her to die?

"I knew it," Yang whispered, earning a wary glance from her partner. The brawler flashed a grin. "She's a redhead."

At this, Blake finally cracked a smile. She nuzzled the little Faunus girl and held her close, purring for all she was worth.

* * *

 **A/N: Slight pause to load up supplies and look after this kid.**

 **Stay tuned!**

 **\- Fiercesomest**


	37. Lullaby

Eventually, the little Faunus stopped biting down on Blake and settled back into a general cling. This was only after Ruby had slipped the dirty knit hat back over her quivering ears, though, and it was clear the kid had no intentions of letting go.

More accurately, she had no intentions at all. She simply clung, hazel eyes blank of anything but a deep, instinctual fear that sprang to the front when the others talked too loud or moved too fast in her direction.

"We can't just stop and wait for her to recover," Weiss pointed out. She and Ruby had finished loaded the sled half an hour ago, and very little had been accomplished in the cleaning of the kid. "Other people are counting on us to get help."

"Weiss is right," Ruby put away the handful of tools she'd brought to keep the sled in working order. They'd salvaged ammo and a few useful pieces of sheet metal from the way-station, but that was about all. She and Weiss had managed a poor burial for the Faunus guardian- just a split in the frozen ground a ways off they filled with rocks and stones and marked with parts of broken crate. Ruby looked over to Blake and the little girl curled against her shoulder. She brushed gentle patterns in the dusting of snow beside their packed-down path. "We should go. We can finish getting her fixed up when we make camp tonight."

"Drei's all hooked up and ready!" Yang called from the sled. Drei let loose with an enthusiastic bark, already straining at the ropes in his eagerness to run.

The shout from her partner had Blake blinking back to reality. She'd spaced out a while back, quietly waiting for the little girl in her arms to calm down enough to let go, simply listening to small racing heartbeat pressed against her, wondering what kept it going at such a breakneck pace, slowing only for a few moments here and there. What had happened to her? What had she seen?

Shaking the wandering thoughts from her head, Blake looked to her team leader, having completely missed what she'd said. Though, by the looks of things, it was time to leave this place. It took a bit of effort getting to her feet with the girl holding to her so tightly, but once she managed, she nodded to Ruby, whispering to the little Faunus as she made her way to the sled, "Hang on tight, we're going for a ride."

Traveling by sled dog was tricky work when you'd never done it before. Ruby found herself constantly checking her map, doubling back, coming across cliffs and rock-slides that must not have existed when the James Pointer's map had been drawn.

Drei was big, and had taken to the harness readily enough, but pulling all five people now was way too much, so they took turns (all of them but Blake) running beside the sled as they went. If they hit a particularly good hill, Ruby used Crescent Rose to give them a kick on the way down and that usually carried them a ways, but in general keeping moving was exhausting work.

Partway through the day, the little girl fell asleep in Blake's arms. When they'd made most of their planned miles and the sun had sunken low among the peaks, they picked a sheltered slant of rock near the base of some cliffs and set up camp.

"Okay, so this has been nice and all," Weiss indicated the tiny Faunus snuggled up in Blake's arms, "but the temperature's dropping, and I just want to be clear that she is not sleeping in my sleeping bag."

"I doubt she'll want to sleep with anyone but Blake," Yang chimed in from afar as she finished rolling out the aforementioned sleeping bags.

"Well, I doubt we can fit all three of us in ours," Blake pointed out, scooting just a bit closer to the fire they'd built.

Yang uttered a long, thoughtful hum, giving Blake and the little girl a quick visual appraisal as she moved to stand beside Weiss. "Yeah no way, it was super tight even with just the two of us." At this, Yang threw an arm around the heiress, positively beaming. "Looks like you're gonna have to share with me!"

" _What_!?" Weiss ducked to get out from under Yang's arm, "No! Absolutely not."

"Ooh, that works out great," Ruby yawned, stretching her arms by the fireside and feeling more worn out than usual, "You and Yang can have watch duty for the night."

"Roger that!" Yang saluted her little sister, spinning around to grasp Weiss's hands. "You hear that princess? Leader's orders," she winked.

Blake smirked at the exchange, sad that she would be missing out on Yang's warmth for the night, but always happy to watch Weiss throw a flustered fit.

While the heiress wrestled with Yang, Ruby nudged Blake with her shoulder, indicating the little sleeping Faunus girl, "I'll get a brush and some food. Need anything?"

Blake shook her head. "I'm fine," she paused for a moment, noting the fatigue shining in those gunmetal eyes. Her brow quirked, matched by a quirk in her lips, "With those two sharing, does that mean you'll be spending the night with us? It'll be close, but I bet we can manage."

"That's good, 'cause otherwise I was going to try to use the ripped one," Ruby gave a sheepish grin. An un-weatherproofed sleeping bag in the mountains of Vale made for a cold, cold night.

"We're not actually sharing," Weiss had managed to get out of Yang's playful hug and was pointing at her from several arms' lengths away, as if it would ward her off, "I'll be on watch, and then you'll be on watch. We'll be using the same bedding at separate times, and I swear if you don't clean the dirt off your clothes and take your filthy boots off before you get in I'll make you wish you'd stayed out in the cold."

"Oh don't worry, I can handle the cold," Yang's grin was ever-widening, "I'll be sure to leave everything nice and warm for you~"

"Yang," Blake took pity on Weiss and waved a hand to get her partner's attention, "Get those eyebrows under control and come warm up some water. This little one needs a bath before she's getting into any sleeping bag."

"Sure sure," the brawler made sure to throw one last parting wink at Weiss on her way to retrieve the pot from the sled and fill it with snow.

Weiss suppressed an infuriated scream as she threw her gear down to get ready for the night's watch duty.

Ruby snickered at the show. From the sled, she scrounged a hairbrush and some of the leftover fish they'd packed after one of Blake's more fruitful fishing endeavors.

She looked up, over the other side of the sled to the peaks high overhead. She could still see the deepening blue of the sky between them and the trees on their slopes. The woods near the cliffs were stunted and snowbound, and thick enough to hide Grimm. But they'd worry about that when they needed to.

For now, Crescent Rose remained a comfortable weight at her back as she crunched back through the snow to Blake and Yang and the little Faunus girl, who was just waking up.

The little girl leaned on Blake, rubbing her eyes.

"Hi," Blake greeted her with a soft smile as she held a hand out to Yang, who supplied her with the piece of torn cloth from earlier, now warm and dampened. The brawler kept her distance this time, holding a pot of melted snow in her lap, expelling just enough heat to keep it at a pleasant temperature. The excess leakage of heat had lured Drei to curl up by her leg - he was already snoozing, tuckered out from the long day's run.

Gently, Blake ran the warm cloth across the little girl's cheek, "Did you sleep okay?"

The little girl ducked from the cloth and held onto Blake's coat, though not as hard as before. She blinked hazel eyes at Yang and Ruby and hid her face shyly in Blake's shoulder.

Ruby grimaced and glanced at Blake, whispering, "Is she biting again?"

Blake glanced at Ruby and shook her head, hoping to keep it that way by keeping the girl distracted. Unable to reach her face, she settled for wiping down what little of the girl's neck wasn't obscured by hair or sooty clothes, "Are you hungry?"

The only response she got was a tightening of the small fists on her coat.

Ruby scooted in close, side-by-side with Blake, one of the tin plates with that leftover fish on it. Belatedly, she realized it was kind of frozen and passed it to Yang.

The brawler snapped her fingers, setting her hand aflame and holding the tin from the bottom, content to simply watch Blake, slightly in awe at her apparently endless patience with children. She definitely would have resorted to tickling and possibly a bit of playful wrestling by now.

As the smell of thawing, cooking fish permeated the air, Blake continued up the girl's neck, dabbing at the smears of soot on one of her human ears. The scrap of cloth was almost blackened already. "Do you have a name? My name is Blake."

The little girl watched Ruby and Yang, and more importantly the food. She made a tiny whining noise and hid her face again.

"I think that was a hungry sound," Ruby grinned, hugging her knees to her chest in an effort to stay small and not startle the little girl.

Having exhausted her list of camp set-up chores, Weiss joined the others at the fire, sulking as she cleaned snow crystals from Myrtenaster's grip in preparation for her sword maintenance routine. "Ruby, shouldn't you be planning tomorrow's route?"

"Yeah, but later," Ruby almost took the plate when Yang offered it back, but felt the heat coming off of it and decided Yang had better just hold it.

Yang took the hint and killed her flames. Setting the pot of water aside for the time being, she scooched closer to Blake and Ruby. Making absolutely sure there wasn't a single bone in the chunk of fish she selected, Yang held her hand out to the little girl, taking a cue from Blake and holding very still. "Heeeeeey, you like fish?"

Ruby watched as the little girl peeked out, her face part dirty part clean. The fear was still there, but she wanted the food so much. So much, there were suddenly tears. The tiny girl hid her face in Blake's shoulder again, whining and crying.

The sight stirred even Weiss to concern.

"Put it on a plate or something so she can eat like a normal human being- Faunus," she corrected herself with a defensive glance at Blake that would have been a lot fiercer if she hadn't gotten her glove caught in Myrtenaster's revolving chamber.

"Right - right yeah," Yang shrank back and set the tin plate down atop of small pile of snow just long enough to cool the flame-touched metal to a reasonable temperature. "Here," she handed it back, boneless piece and all.

Blake traded the blackened cloth for the plate, flashing a smile of thanks to both Weiss and Yang. She then pressed her face to the top of the little girl's head, speaking softly as she could feel through the knitted hat that she was right between her Faunus ears, "It's okay, no one is going to hurt you."

Ruby got up and moved to perch next to Weiss on the rock by the fire so the little girl would have some more space.

A handful of seconds passed, and then a handful of minutes. The little girl sniffled against Blake's coat and didn't seem to be able to unwind her hands from the thick fabric or do anything else besides stay curled up and scared in her lap.

Ears flat with worry, Blake bit her lip, trying to think of anything that might help this little girl relax before she stressed herself into starvation. Soft words weren't working, hugs, nuzzles, not even purring. She was at a loss. Until she looked to Weiss. A desperate idea formed in Blake's mind, but at this point she was willing to try anything.

"Weiss..." she hesitated for a moment, but steeled herself once more with a glance down at the teary-eyed little girl pressed into her shoulder, "Do you think... you could sing something? It might help her calm down."

"What?" Weiss looked up from her weapon, frowning, "Why me? She likes you. You can sing."

"I don't know if you'd want to hear that," Blake dodged Weiss's eyes, cursing her backfired request, "And it seems to be you three she's afraid of... She needs to know you're not a threat and... and anyway I don't really know any songs."

Yang raised her hand, looking between Weiss and Blake. "I am one hundred percent on board with either of these options."

"You don't know any songs?" Ruby fumbled her pencil, dropping it in the snow. She'd gotten the map out to look at where they were headed and to see if there were any settlements on the way. There were, but they wouldn't be close for a couple of days. If the settlements still existed. She fished the pencil back out, silver eyes on Blake, "Not even like, row, row, row your boat?"

"Oh that's a great song to sing someone who's just seen her entire family get brutally murdered by Grimm," Weiss leaned to add another branch to the fire and noticed Ruby gaping at her, but she had no intention of taking the scathing comment back. "Don't make that face at me. Besides, she's most scared of Yang. If we're trying to make her less terrified by singing, Yang should go first."

Yang looked crushed at the thought of being scary to a little kid, but it was soon swept away by a look of cautious determination. "Well, there is a song I used to sing to Ruby when she was little," one she had learned from Summer. "I guess I could..." Yang hesitated, looking to her little sister.

"We could both sing it," Ruby suggested over the beaten up map. She'd been little, but she still knew the song by heart.

"Okay. Okay yeah!" Yang brightened up, posture straightening, "So, we learned this from mom and uh, I guess, do I just... go for it?"

"Just start," Blake urged, curiosity driving her to impatience. She hadn't even thought to ask Yang to sing, even though in retrospect it now seemed painfully obvious.

"Right," Yang nodded, took a deep breath, and did just that.

" _They see you as small and helpless. They see you as just a child. Surprise when they find out that a warrior will soon run wild..._ "

The melody was slow, haunting in a way that Blake wasn't quite expecting, but somehow, when Ruby joined in, the sisters managed to bring a distinct warmth to an otherwise dark set of lyrics. Honestly, w _elcome to a world of bloody revolution_? Is this what Huntress mothers sang to their children?

Subconsciously, Blake hugged the little girl a bit closer.

"... this explains a lot about your dispositions," Weiss looked between the sisters, eyebrows raised as they finished.

"You're not allowed to complain if you don't sing," Ruby crossed her arms, lifting her chin in a Weiss-ish manner, still feeling warm and happy from doing a duet with her big sis. Then, remembering the little girl, "How is she? Does she want to eat yet?"

The little Faunus nuzzled into Blake's shoulder with a tiny sigh, not paying attention to the food, but also not shivering in terror.

"I... I think it's working," Blake nuzzled right back, gratefulness shining in her smile.

Yang was practically giddy with pride. "C'mon Weiss," she nudged the heiress's foot, "you heard her, it's working. Keep it going, miss world renowned vocalist."

"Pleeeeeeeease?" Ruby leaned into Weiss's shoulder.

"Oh, fine," Weiss huffed, replacing Myrtenaster at her hip as she rose from her seat beside Ruby, "Don't expect anything concert worthy-I haven't sung in a _long_ time."

"Um, we can all hear when you sing in the shower back at Beacon," Ruby pointed out.

Weiss glared at her, flushing red enough for Ruby to tell even by firelight.

"Anyway," she crossed her arms. "I didn't really specialize in upbeat songs, but I do know some lullabies, if you think that would help."

"That sounds pretty much perfect, now quit stallin' and sing already," Yang leaned her head in her hands, beaming an expectant smile up at the heiress.

Blake offered her own nod of encouragement, excited to hear one of Weiss's songs without a bathroom door muffling the sound.

Ruby fidgeted with her gloves while the distinctly ruffled Weiss took a seat near Blake.

The heiress cleared her throat and shifted so she was facing the campfire. With a quick sideways glance to the little girl snuggled up to Blake's shoulder, she took a deep breath and began to sing, " _Long ago, before we met, I dreamed about you. The peace you'd bring. The songs we'd sing. The way you'd make things new..._ "

A frozen mountain breeze tugged at the edges of Ruby's cloak, but she didn't pay it any mind as she listened to Weiss. The higher notes seemed to come effortlessly for her, and the lullaby hung like a crystal in the night air. Ruby felt like if she closed her eyes and leaned a little closer, she might be able to catch it and hold onto it, right next to her chest.

" _I will cling, I will clutch,_ " Weiss sang softly to the fire, " _I'll hold onto you, I won't turn away. I won't leave, I won't go, I will stay with you all our days._ "

Silence blanketed the small camp as Weiss's final note drifted with the campfire's embers up into the stars. It was peaceful, a silence Blake didn't particularly feel like breaking.

Yang on the other hand... "Dang, Weiss. What do we have to do to get you to sing more often?"

Though Blake's eyes had drifted shut about halfway through the lullaby's second verse, she could still recognize her partner's voice, even softened in awe as it was.

Weiss shot her a glare, then, softening, she shrugged, "Let's just make it back to Beacon."

Ruby shook her head to tear her gaze away from Weiss and look over to the little Faunus girl. She was still a tiny, dirt-encrusted mess, too frightened to speak or eat, but at least she seemed to be asleep in Blake's arms.

Maybe… even if things went badly at James Point, maybe they could at least help this one girl.

* * *

 **A/N: OK but, I would also like Weiss to sing me a lullaby when I'm stressed... please? Pretty please?**

 **Until next time ;3**

 **HUGS,**  
 **D**


	38. Sardines

**A/N: A bit of a short chapter this week. Someday we'll go back through and fix the pacing on all of this, haha. Until then, enjoy the calm!**

 **\- Fiercesomest**

* * *

Standing up from her spot at the campfire, Ruby asked, keeping her voice low, "I'll set out the sleeping bags. Is everyone good food-wise?"

"Already got you covered there, sis," Yang motioned behind her to the sleeping bags she'd haphazardly flung to the ground earlier. They were mostly rolled out.

Ruby smacked her palm to her forehead with a sheepish grin. How could she have forgotten Yang putting out the sleeping bags?

"Yang," Blake whispered, setting the plate of food down and motioning to her partner to bring the pot of warm water and cloth. Maybe if they were lucky, they could give the girl a stealth-bath while she slept.

The Faunus girl slept right through Blake and Yang getting stuff ready. Weiss observed from the sidelines, asking quietly, "What kind of Faunus is she?"

Yang shrugged and shook her head, watching as Blake tested the water's temperature one last time. "Judging by the coloring of her ears... and the shape.." Satisfied that the water was just warm enough to be soothing and not shock the little Faunus girl awake, Blake soaked a bit of water into the cloth and paused, wondering where to even start. "I'm thinking something in the canine family."

"So some kind of dog?" Weiss adjusted the collar of her coat higher, glancing at Blake to gauge whether the question was offensive or not.

The girl was out like a light. They could even clean and brush her hair, if they wanted. Some of the dirt on her sleeves turned out to be crusted blood, but there was no telling if it was hers or someone else's unless they got her out of her torn up clothes. Ruby came back to the fire with an extra sleeping shirt, if the girl needed something clean.

Slowly, carefully, Blake eased the knitted cap off of the little girl's head, taking a closer look at her large pointed Faunus ears currently drooping in sleep. The fur was light and fine, still a child's, but the coloring... red base, black tips. Blake glanced at Drei, who had curled into a tight ball by the dying fire. "A dog doesn't seem quite right."

"Blake, give her here." Shirt in hand from Ruby, Yang held her arms out, motioning for Blake to relinquish the little girl. As badly as she needed a bath, they also needed to wash those clothes of hers, and that couldn't very well be done with her in them. The cold wasn't letting up though, and the dark heavy coat wrapped around the little girl reached down to her knees, providing a barrier of warmth that only Yang could match while they worked.

Reluctantly, Blake let Yang take the little girl from her, helping to slide the coat from her narrow shoulders, gingerly pulling it from around her. The pair froze when a fluffy white-tipped red tail slipped into view. Blake's mouth set in a thin line. An outcast even among her fellow Faunus... It was no wonder her family fled to the outskirts like this.

Without her coat, the tiny girl was even tinier, lying limp in Yang's arms. Her tail had bits of fur missing towards its end, evidence of a near miss not long in the past.

Ruby had never seen a Faunus with two features before. She took the coat as Blake handed it back. What had this girl been through? She was so skinny- how long had she been starving and alone in the mountains? Ruby glanced out into the dark towards the trees, hands itching to draw Crescent Rose to keep the little kid protected.

"... definitely not a dog," Weiss surmised, unsure of what else to say. Faunus with two animal traits—ears and a tail, say—were very rare, as far as she knew, and tended to occupy an even lower rung on the social ladder than their one-traited peers. The general opinion was that they were degenerated degenerates- that much closer to animals.

Blake said nothing at all, a quiet sadness about her as she set to work on the rest of the girl's clothes.

Yang looked like she wanted to say something to her partner, concern flickering behind her eyes, but she dragged her gaze to Weiss instead. "I may as well take first watch, huh? Seems like Blake and I will be up for a bit."

Weiss nodded without turning from the little girl, hesitating before she went to make sure her sleeping gear was in order.

"There's a marker for a settlement not too far from here," Ruby said, collecting a scarf and layers of too-big clothes from Blake, "We'll pass it in a couple of days, if it's still there, and-"

She watched as Blake removed the girl's last layer. The tiny Faunus's ribs stood out, and her right arm was coated in dried, flaking blood from her elbow to her wrist. She curled up against Yang, whimpering in her sleep.

"- I'll get the med kit," Ruby semblanced to the edge of the sled and back almost before she'd finished speaking. The long scratch on the girl's arm had scabbed over, but only just. Ruby unrolled the kit, looking for some antibiotic stuff to put on it.

After the eighth or ninth, Yang lost count of how many pots of water it took to remove the layers upon layers of dirt and grime from the little girl and her clothes. Even Ruby's trips to gather fresh snow began to blur together, though the evidence of their progress was clearly recorded by the impressive pockmarked dent in the nearby snowbank.

For a while Yang found herself draped in the girl's wet clothes, acting as a dryer, and a space heater, and a boiler, and keeping her semblance running hot for such an extended time was exhausting. Especially when no one on her team could really muscle through her aura to punch a bit of extra energy into her without getting weapons involved. Not a great idea having a scythe rifle swung at you when holding a little kid in your lap, as Blake so helpfully pointed out after Ruby so kindly offered.

What felt like hours of diligent work later, they finally finished their task, and Yang finally let her semblance cool a bit. The little girl's clothes were... as clean as they were going to get, and the little girl herself had transformed from a soot-caked dirtmonster, into a sleepy cuddlemonster. Much like Ruby, who had fallen asleep at her side, still holding Crescent Rose, or Drei, who had curled up behind her in favor of the dying embers of their campfire.

Blake, the natural night owl that she was, was currently running a brush Ruby had brought them (one that looked mysteriously like Weiss's) through the Faunus girl's tail, having just finished taming her hair, which after a proper washing turned out to be a brilliant shade of red, lighter than Ruby's, but darker than Pyrrha's. ...Not quite as dark as the circles under Blake's eyes though.

"Blake." Yang frowned when she got no response. "Blake she looks great. You can stop now."

"But I need to-"

"You need to sleep," Yang cut her partner's protest short with a hand to her shoulder.

Blake nearly dropped the brush in surprise when Yang gently shifted the girl back into her arms. "But-"

"The only 'but' I want to see is yours heading to those nice warm sleeping bags," Yang nudged Ruby awake before Blake could protest further, "Hey sis, drag this girl to bed with your team leader powers. She's being unruly."

Blake scowled, but there was no edge to it. She held the little girl close. "I am not being unruly."

"Blake? Not being unruly?" Ruby had started up, but now she relaxed her shoulders and faked a yawn, teasing Blake, "Who is this impostor?"

Scrubbing her eyes and levering herself up to her feet, she blinked at the newly transformed little girl. Bundled up in her ash and soot colored clothes, her red hair and fluffy white-tipped tail stood out all the more. She still looked small and too thin, but she was clean, and that was definitely a step in the right direction. Pride surged in Ruby's chest- they could help the people at James Point, and they could help this girl.

She made a fist, "Alright team, let's go get some sleep," she tipped her head to her sister, who she knew had been running her semblance non-stop pretty much the whole evening. "Yang, it's about time for you to switch with Weiss, if you want."

Yang stretched out, groaning in delight at the small cracks and pops that cascaded down her spine. "Yeah actually, that sounds awesome. Guess I better go wake the princess," she said with a heaving sigh that did not match her toothy grin in the slightest.

Blake knew that grin and it's devious intent, and thus she shot her partner a warning look, which Yang caught and heeded with a lilting, "I'll be good~" as she pushed herself to her feet and lazily strolled in the direction of the campsite's lone occupied sleeping bag.

Amber eyes rolled, making a quick detour to the empty sleeping bag and the girl in her arms before coming to rest on Ruby. "Ready for a game of sardines, then?"

There was a shriek from Weiss's side of camp, followed by furious, prickling lecture sounds, probably about the proper way to wake someone for their turn at watch.

Ruby looked from that fun time to the sleeping bag and ran her gloved hand through her hair, "Yep."

Blake got in first with the girl and Ruby worked her way in afterwards. It was tight. Really tight.

Ruby glanced down at the little girl between her and Blake. All that showed above the edge of the fabric and its weatherproof shell were her pointed Faunus ears and the red of her hair.

"Think she can breathe okay?" Ruby whispered across the tickly, fuzzy ears to Blake.

The little girl's breaths tickled Blake's neck, slow and steady enough that she felt perfectly confident answering, "She'll be all right." The warm air might even do her a bit of good - help her sleep.

Not keen on continuing her own battle against sleep for much longer, Blake let her eyes fall shut, oddly comforted by the familiar background noise of Weiss's very vocal ire. "I don't know about Yang, though," she mused, pressing her face between the little girl's ears, liquid limbs shifting around Ruby's back, those few extra inches of closeness paradoxically giving them more room to breathe. "Hopefully we won't wake to find her skewered by Myrtenaster."

Ruby hummed, snuggling into Blake's embrace. She spoke softly, "She'll be fine. Weiss was really worried about you guys, you know? She's just being prickly to make up for it."

Sure enough, the lecturing quieted down and branches scraped against each other as Weiss built the fire back up.

 _We worried about you too._ The words teetered at the tip of Blake's tongue, but she bit them back, not wanting to dwell on the separation she'd caused for any longer than absolutely necessary. At least, not verbally.

Instead, she feigned sleep, her mind naturally drawn to wandering those well-traveled back alleys of what-ifs and other dreary hypotheticals until the lie became truth, and she drifted off to the sounds of light breathing and crackling flames.


	39. See You Later Bye

**A/N: So, today's chapters are a little bit late because we got a surprise roommate! He is huge and orange and a cat, and will be for us with a week, and _what a day_ it's been _._ He's gonna have a good time here, I think. At least a better time than... our poor team RWBY is having ahAH**

 **HUGS,**  
 **D**

* * *

In the morning, Ruby woke up knowing that she'd had a dream, but the memory of it sifted away leaving only a knotted feeling in her stomach. She closed her hands, wanting Crescent Rose, but she'd left her weapon wrapped in the ripped sleeping bag next to her, outside of the one she was sharing with Blake and the tiny Faunus. Slowly she relaxed, letting the warmth of her sleeping teammate and their small charge calm her down.

The air was cold on her face, and it tried to creep in through the opening of the bag. Getting out was going to be freezing.

Weiss was on watch by the low fire, a pot of water for coffee or tea already steaming on the coals.

Despite her careful inching and squirming, Ruby couldn't quite manage to extricate herself from the sleeping bag without disturbing Blake and the little girl, who snuggled closer to the bigger Faunus.

"Mama...?" the tiny, sleepy voice mumbled into Blake's coat.

Blake's ears flattened against her skull. She was awake. She'd been awake since Ruby started trying to move, and she wished so badly that she'd been able to stay asleep. Anything to avoid having her heart utterly shattered by a single word. Threading a hand through the little girl's hair, Blake kept her eyes screwed shut to hold back a rush of unbidden tears that hit her just as she pressed a light kiss right between the girl's Faunus ears, as any good mother would, murmuring a soft, "Good morning," feeling for all the world that those words were a lie.

In response to the kiss and the warm, kind words, the little girl nuzzled right under Blake's chin. She whimpered, still partly asleep, "I'm hungry."

Weiss had turned to see what was going on. Ruby, who had slipped free only to immediately panic over what to do after the tiny girl called Blake her mom, jumped and in a fast whisper said, "I'll get some breakfast started right now."

The tiny girl's ears pricked towards the sound of Ruby's voice and she poked her head up past the edge of the sleeping bag. Her bleary hazel eyes caught sight of Blake and turned confused.

"She said _what_?"

Blake tried not to listen to her team's hushed voices over by the campfire - if she could hear them, so could this little girl. Steeling herself despite knowing it was ultimately futile, Blake cracked open her eyes to really look at the small Faunus in her arms. She met eyes that screamed exhaustion, inside and out, and a quiet sadness that Blake had to stop herself from thinking about at the feeling of a tear leaking out of the corner of her eye. She tried her hardest to smile. "Do you... like fish?" It felt like a stupid question, but she couldn't think of anything else.

The girl nodded a little, still searching Blake as though she could somehow find out everything about her just by looking. Something sizzled in a pan near the campfire, and she ducked down into the sleeping bag, a small bundle of warmth clinging tight to Blake's middle.

"Blake's going to have to go foraging again soon," Weiss said to Ruby, her voice low. In a bid for speed, they'd only packed enough for the two of them when they'd left James Point, figuring Yang and Blake would have their own supplies. She stirred a measure of instant coffee into her tin cup of hot water while they watched Yang (who Ruby had practically tackled in her hurry to wake her up) fix breakfast.

Ruby leaned on Yang's shoulder while the fish and leftover greens thawed and cooked. It would probably be hard for Blake to forage with a tiny Faunus attached to her. A tiny, orphaned Faunus that thought she was her mom. Ruby craned her neck back to look at Blake, whisper-shouting, "Are you doing okay?"

With a quick elbow to her sister's side, Yang threw a wary glance in Blake's direction. Of all the things to ask someone who was emotionally compromised, 'are you okay' was a surefire one-way-ticket to tearsville-

"I'm- I'm fine... I'm fine. We're both going to be fine-"

Yang sighed. She didn't even have to look to know what those hitches in her partner's voice meant. "Breakfast will be ready in a couple of minutes," she called to the pair of Faunus, hoping to brighten their spirits with the promise of food.

Ruby tried to take back her emotional-avalanche-inducing question, "I just meant if you needed any help we could-ack!"

Weiss stopped yanking on her hood when she stopped talking. Ruby grimaced, straightening her collar and rubbing her throat where the fabric had dug in.

Blake appreciated the sentiment from her team, but it was the distress practically vibrating off the little girl in her arms that inspired her to at least attempt to calm herself down. She half succeeded, unable to stop the slow trickle of tears, but mustering enough calm to whisper a soft stream of apologies and encouragement to the tiny Faunus as she ran her hands in soothing circles across her back, or gently through her hair.

That seemed to help a little, and the frightened silence subsided into intermittent sniffles.

Back by the fire, Ruby held a plate for Yang to scoop food from the frying pan into.

"I think you should take it over," she said, "You're... well, I mean, you were great with me when mom-" the feelings from that time were still raw, and the feeling of loss from her nightmares reared up. Ruby dropped her silver eyes to the snow, her words breaking, "I mean, this girl is pretty tiny and if both her parents- so, um-"

Without a word Yang wrapped her sister in a hug from the side, careful enough to avoid upsetting the plate of food, but tight enough to hopefully squeeze some reassurance into her. The hug was quick, just a few solid seconds before she pulled back and flashed Ruby and Weiss a wink and a smile. She took the plate and strolled over to the pair of Faunus.

Blake looked up at her partner, tired, but curious.

"Well hello there," Yang squatted down beside the sleeping bag, "Word on the street is you lovely ladies ordered breakfast in bed."

It took a few moments, but the smile that worked its way across Blake's face was worth the wait. She sat up as best she could in the confines of the zipped-up sleeping bag, half-pulling the little girl up into her lap. "Why yes, I believe we did."

There was some squirming, and the little girl peeked up past the edge of a sleeping bag at Yang and the food.

Blake looked between them, realizing anew that this little Faunus would need to get along with her team if they wanted any hopes of functioning during this trip. Keeping one arm securely wrapped around the girl, Blake reached out to place her other hand over one of Yang's. She ducked her head to speak into the little girl's Faunus ears, her words softened by affection, "This is Yang. She's my partner. She is stronger than an Ursa, she gives the warmest hugs, and she is very good at cooking."

The girl shrank against Blake some, and she turned to hide part of her face, but her ears stayed perked towards Yang.

"Uh, hi. Hey there~" Yang sat on the ground and waved. She held the tin plate out. "So today there are tasty green things and delicious fishes, all for you," she glanced at Blake, wondering if it might be better to just give the plate to her to hold. "Should I uh..."

Blake paused, watching the little Faunus for a reaction.

The girl's ears twitched, wanting to flatten, but too interested to do so. Her nose worked overtime, but her fists stayed buried in Blake's shirt. Those hazel eyes glanced up at Blake for direction.

"At this rate, we'll be here all day," Weiss had a cross set to her jaw as she took up the regular camp chores, scouring her breakfast plate and cup with snow and picking up gear her teammates had left lying around, including some of the tiny Faunus's more irredeemably dirty and torn up clothing. She considered burning them.

"We have to help where we can help, you know?" Ruby rubbed her hands by the low fire while Weiss fussed over the camp, "and we're still in the time frame we gave Cyan and the others."

"Not if something else happens," Weiss snapped, keeping her voice low, "and this is Grimm territory. 'Something else' _always_ happens."

"She's a little kid, and she's scared," Ruby said, finding Weiss's gaze and holding it, "We have to take care of her."

"I just don't think it's a good idea to spend all our time looking after one child when there are dozens of people waiting for help back at James Point," the heiress stalked past Ruby and dropped an armload of gear into the bottom of the sled.

Ruby felt a surge of that deep down desire to protect folks, and she levered herself up off the rock, "We'll see if she'll eat, and then we'll go. We won't be here all day, so no worries, alright?"

Weiss frowned, searching her as if to see if she meant it. At last, she crossed her arms, "That sounds acceptable."

"Good," Ruby said and looked over to see if the others were making any progress.

At Blake's silent direction, Yang had leaned back a bit, resting her head on the arm she'd propped up on one knee, eyes closed and feigning sleep as she held the plate out for them.

Blake herself had taken a small bite of the fish, holding another bite-sized piece right by the little girl's face. "See? It's good."

The girl's ears flicked back. Her eyes left Blake's as she nipped the bit of food from her fingers, ducking into the shelter of the sleeping bag as she wolfed the bite down.

Smiles stretched across Blake and Yang's faces, but where the brawler kept up her act, Blake gave the tiny Faunus a small squeeze of encouragement. "That's it, come on," she gently urged, unzipping the sleeping bag a few inches for easier access to the food, "Eat as much as you can."

Yang cracked her eyes open to check the little girl wasn't watching, quickly casting her gaze across the campsite to catch her little sister's eyes, throw her a wink before shutting them again.

Ruby grinned back at Yang and poked at what was left of the fire. Yang had always been good with kids, so her starting to get along with their new passenger wasn't really a surprise. Weiss had settled down too, turning one of the girl's ragged shirts over absently.

The little girl looked out at the plate in Yang's hand, ears pinned to her red hair. She couldn't seem to gather up the courage to leave the sleeping bag, or reach out, so she buried her face in Blake's coat with a high pitched whine.

Blake bit her lip, opting for a slightly different approach. She carefully pried one of the little girl's hands away, and brought it over to grasp the tin plate, covering the tiny hand in her own around the plate's edge. "See? Nothing's going to hurt you. You're safe with us."

That seemed to do the trick. The plate was close enough to her now, and nothing bad had happened. In a flash the little girl was gripping the plate with both hands and scarfing the fish and greens down like they might disappear if she waited another second.

Yang cracked her eyes open, meeting Blake's in a triumphant smile. Though, her smile began to fade when she saw Blake's smile vanish, watched her Faunus ears perk tall at attention, swiveling as if to catch something.

A high-pitched warning bark from Drei broke the moment.

The brawler turned her head, alarmed, but mostly confused, as she couldn't see anything nearby. "What's up b-whhuh?" Suddenly, the little girl was in her arms, courtesy of Blake, who had dropped to put both of her left ears to the ground. After only a few seconds she stood again, rushing to roll her sleeping bag up at speeds Yang hadn't thought humanly possible. "Ruby," Blake called, "There's a herd of something headed this way. Hoofed, coming from the northeast."

"Gotcha," Ruby called back, sighting across the steep slopes to their left. A bunch of black shapes emerged from a tumble of rocks- some kind of mountain-goat Grimm? They weren't huge, but there were a lot of them, and they'd be on top of the camp in another couple minutes. Ruby scattered the fire and motioned for the sled. "Let's go, guys."

It'd be better to save ammo than stay and fight.

Weiss was already pulling the cords of their packed goods tight while the little Faunus kicked and struggled to get free of Yang's arms.

Blake tossed the rolled up bag to Ruby, grabbed Gambol Shroud, and leaped after Yang into the sled.

"Jeeze Blakey, you handed me a squirmer all right," Yang hunched low against the packed goods in the back of the sled, head knocking against what was probably a can of beans as they jerked forward, pulled by Drei into a decent pace. Her grip was soft, solid iron around the little girl's waist, unbreakable even against the little girl's wildest flailing, but that fear was only going to draw even more Grimm straight to them. "Shhhh, it's okay," Yang looked up at her partner for help, pulling the Faunus from her self-appointed job of watching the sled's rear, "You're all right, it's... it's uh..."

Words failed the normally talkative brawler when Blake straddled her stretched out legs and knelt down, resting one arm atop Yang's shoulder to aim Gambol's pistol at the distant herd behind them, and curling her other arm protectively around the little Faunus girl's shoulders, creating what could have been the most awesome hug-sandwich in history if it weren't for the whole being chased by creatures of darkness thing. Regardless, Blake's presence seemed to be helping, so Yang joined her in whispering soft reassurances to the tiny Faunus they held between them.

The wicked curved horns on the Grimm spilling down the mountain towards them gleamed with streaks of red in the winter sun. Ruby didn't wait to see if the little girl settled down.

"Cover up her ears," she told Blake and Yang, bracing herself and Crescent Rose as Weiss hauled Drei on board and summoned up a row of glyphs. Myrtenaster glowed white at her hip, and the sigils stretched in a line down the hillside.

The report from Crescent Rose echoed off the cliffs, and they were off, shooting across the snow so fast the Grimm didn't have a chance of keeping up.

The mountain Grimm herd came to a disappointed halt, hooves churning the snow of the team's camp as the sled vanished over a distant rise.

Their flared noses sniffed at the fear in the air, their bony faces turned towards the sun.

A harsh cry overhead caught the attention of thousands of burning ember-red eyes. Dropping below the cloud cover, an enormous flock of Nevermore soared through the air. Sharp hooves stamped the ground as the herd shifted, following their fellow Grimm to the much, much larger source of fear lying beyond the mountain ridges.


	40. Flashback

The clear slopes and steep ridges eventually gave way to a thick evergreen forest. Riding by glyph and recoil was fast, but not so great when it came to trees, so RWBY hitched the slightly pink Drei to the front of the sled and let him haul the sled through the snow laden pines and junipers.

Weiss sat at the front, keeping an eye out for anything out of the ordinary while Ruby pored over the map. The little Faunus had snuggled up to Yang, quiet and watching the passing surroundings with wide eyes.

Drei took them under a low branch. It brushed Ruby's head and sifted a sprinkle of snow down the back of her neck. She yelped and Weiss, who had ducked the branch, laughed at her.

"Cold cold cold," Ruby swatted at the snow and was struck suddenly by a familiar feeling. She paused, trying to catch it in the shush of the sled across the snow, the bite of the mountain air. A breeze stirred the pines and moaned low across the peaks. The light shone soft and green through the branches. Something about it all stirred a memory of...

"Hey..." Ruby frowned, "I think Ren was in my dream."

Blake perked from her position pressed against Yang's side, leeching warmth. Brows furrowed, she let her mind wander even as she diligently watched the sled's rear. Something pulled at the edge of her thoughts, calm and insistent. A lone pink mountain flower peeking through the snow snagged Blake's focus, bright pink eyes flashing to life in her memories. "...Now that you mention it, I think he's been in a few of mine too."

"Pffft, that sounds boring," Yang yawned, brushing away a few stray pine needles that had fallen into the little girl's hair, "I keep seeing Nora in mine."

Weiss glanced back at them, almost camouflaged in the snowy surroundings with her white hair and coat and gloves. She hesitated, then tossed her hair, feigning nonchalance as she lied outright, "I don't remember my dreams, so they must not be important."

"That's weird that we'd all dream about Ren and Nora," Ruby included Weiss, since she'd seemed unsure for a second. She looked over at Blake, "What did he do in yours?"

Blake let the scenery slide by without really seeing it, focused more on the lingering crumbled and desolate imagery that remained from her dreams. "I'm... not sure. I think he was talking... about something?"

"See? Snooze fest," Yang cut in, waving a hand, "Nora kept dragging me around, and like, pushing me - we grappled!" In a ruined wasteland that Yang had been terrified to leave for some reason but she neglected to mention that part. "It was awesome."

Ruby tried to remember what had happened in hers.

The flicker of green vanished behind the edge of a building. Had she heard his voice? She had only seen him for a second, but when she thought about it, it felt like he wanted her to follow him. (Hard to do with the whole legs-not-working dream thing, but the feeling was there.)

"I think he was trying to get me to follow him someplace," Ruby crossed her arms, still thinking but unable to come up with anything more substantial.

"Well, that sounds incredibly interesting," Weiss's sarcasm stemmed somewhat from the few snatches of dreams she could recall from the past several weeks- all of which involved black Grimm and broken stone, which she figured were leftover from her fight with the Liliac in the bell tower. No friendly encounters with fellow classmates for her. There was that one where someone- her father?- tried to haul her away. She scowled, pointing to the map on Ruby's lap, "Shouldn't we be making sure we're headed in the right direction? This town we're headed to isn't exactly out of our way, but if we miss it we could lose travel time."

"We'll check at the next ridge," Ruby brushed snow off the worn paper and folded it back into her pocket. It would be hard to get their bearings exactly right in the middle of a patch of woods like this. "By the way, how's...?"

She gestured a little towards the tiny Faunus clinging to Yang.

Yang's eyes brightened, "Oh you know what, I keep forgetting to ask, hey kiddo," she patted the little girl's head, "What's your name, huh?"

The girl's ears went back as the others looked at her and she hid her face in Yang's jacket.

"Yeah so I'm just gonna call you Cutie because oh my gosh."

"She seems fine," Blake supplied an actual answer to Ruby's original question while her partner gushed over the tiny Faunus in her lap.

Ruby couldn't keep the stupid grin off her face. She straightened out her cloak, "Just let us know if she needs to stop for food or a bathroom break or anything."

* * *

They didn't find the town on the map that day or the next.

"We passed it," Weiss insisted, dumping her armload of wood onto the packed snow near the campfire. They'd taken shelter among the boulders lining the edges of a shallow valley. "I knew this would happen."

Ruby frowned over the map. Looking up at the fading daylight and the peaks silhouetted against the deepening blue in the east. She'd been so sure—the map said the town would be around here, but they hadn't seen smoke from fires or buildings or anything. "Maybe it was one of those nomadic sorts of towns? And they... uh… moved?"

"Moved the whole town," Weiss deadpanned, as she added a few branches to the fire, "That explains why it's marked so clearly on the map as being right there, wherever that is."

"Speaking of towns," Yang looked up from her task of setting a pile of stones in a tight circle to glance at Blake and the little girl on the other side of the valley, holding hands as they walked along a small stream. It had been long enough now that it felt safe to ask, "Whatever happened to..." her eyes dipped briefly to the ground in sorrow, then returned to Weiss and Ruby, "you know. To James Point?"

Ruby and Weiss both went quiet.

"You mean after you and Blake left?" Weiss asked, her words blunt but without animosity. That had happened what seemed like a long time ago.

The fire crackled and chinked as the burning branches settled.

* * *

 _Day had broken, but slowly. Pale light showed around the edge of the makeshift door near the ceiling, but the rest of the small stone and mortar house remained dark and still. The coals in the fireplace showed traces of dull red._

 _Ruby woke up with a face full of Drei's warm fur. She stretched on her half of the couch, feeling very much like she'd been hibernating. Her internal clock (otherwise known as her stomach) was growling, telling her to get up._

 _What time was it? With a dead scroll and no working clocks in sight, she had no way to tell. Weiss slept undisturbed on the other side of the large dog, her white hair just visible over the layers of blankets. It would be a while before she was back at a hundred percent, but for now her breathing was slow and easy._

 _The air outside of the cocoon Ruby had made of her cloak and an old quilt caught her breath and turned it to a fine mist. Shedding her layers, Ruby soft-stepped her way across the thick rug over to the stack of crates that led up to the hatch over the door. She climbed up and fumbled the latch with cold fingers. When it came open, she had to squint in the blue-white light filtering through the snow._

 _Outside, the sun was high over the rim of the valley. The top layer of snow had refrozen overnight. Ruby took a couple of steps past the edge of the empty roof, testing it._

 _Last night, she'd been thinking more and more about ways to defend the people of James Point. Blake was right about trying to travel with them... there was just no way they'd make it to Vale. But maybe they could find someplace for them to wait. Someplace not so stained with fear and despair. She'd already had to put down a couple of beowolves during her watch in the first part of the evening. They must have found a way down the steep valley walls. She'd taken shots at a dark shape that fluttered across the moon, too._

 _The Grimm were coming. Probably they'd been sniffing James Point out all through the blizzard._

 _Last night, holed up under the snow, bundled up with blankets and a fire, Ruby couldn't help thinking about the last few days of Mountain Glen, all those people retreating from enemies above only to find more below. Even if they hadn't been tunneling deeper, they'd trapped themselves in their efforts to block off access to the surface._

 _Maybe by relocating, the James Pointers could avoid that bleak fate._

 _Ha, Ruby grinned to herself and tried to rub some warmth into her arms. Look at her, learning from history. Professor Ooblek would be so proud. That was, if Beacon wasn't too busy dealing with whatever had kept them from sending help. Unless the haywire robots really were supposed to be help? She was definitely giving them a no-star review when she got back._

 _The crust over the snow held. She took a deep breath of the clean, morning air. It was so cold, her throat and lungs hurt, but being able to walk over the snow gave her a boost of hope._

 _She hopped back onto the roof. All the arguing back and forth with Blake and Yang and Weiss... now they could get to the townsfolk more easily. They'd come up with a plan once and for all. Something to save everybody they could._

 _When she slid down through the door hatch, Weiss was up, clutching her coat close as she worked to build the fire back up._

 _"Hey, you're awake," Ruby greeted her, dropping down to the floor._

 _Weiss glared at her, "How could I not be with you clomping around on the roof? Honestly. Where's Yang? She was supposed to build the fire up before the end of her watch."_

 _"I dunno," the realization struck Ruby as odd. Come to think of it, she hadn't seen Blake either. She ducked into the kitchen- it looked like there was less food in the stockpiles. Had they gone ahead and eaten breakfast? The basement was frozen and empty, likewise the side closet full of rope and broken snowshoes. Confused, Ruby rubbed her arm, "Maybe she and Blake are out searching for supplies?"_

 _The heiress had gone quiet while Ruby had searched around. "I suppose they didn't leave a note."_

 _"Probably they just forgot," Ruby plunked down on the rug, offering her a can of beans. "Are you feeling alright?"_

 _Weiss huddled close to the fire, focusing on feeding the growing flames, "Well, cold, but definitely better than the past few days."_

 _"If you want to walk, the snow's got a great coat of ice on top. It should be super easy to get around," Ruby worked the can opener on a couple of cans, setting one with dog food in it over for Drei. It made her wonder why there were fewer cans in the stockpile. She crossed her arms over her drawn up knees, "There was a lot more food next door. Probably they went to pick up some more. Or maybe they found a neighbor who was running out, and they're delivering some."_

 _"Maybe," Weiss said without looking up._

 _A heavy silence fell over the two of them as the fire worked its way through the dry wood, eating away at it like a virus._

 _They waited all day, but there was no Blake or Yang. In the evening, the stars barely gave enough light to see by._

* * *

 _Ruby's boots hit the shingles with a heavy thump. She crouched there for a second, counting off breaths as she gripped Crescent Rose, waiting for an alarm to go up. When no one inside of the infirmary started sending bullets through the roof, she stalked to the edge, to a small packed snow ramp that sloped down to the upper story window. A heavy curtain blocked most of the dim light from inside._

 _Licking her chapped lips and keeping a firm grip on her scythe, she slid down and knocked on the window frame—or tried to. A flicker of bluish energy prevented her from actually touching the wood. Her knuckles tingled and she looked down at her hand, but she seemed unscathed._

 _The energy felt familiar somehow. Ruby knocked on the energy field a second time, gently._

 _After a few moments, the curtain drew back and she stood face to face with Cyan. Several other townsfolk hovered in the background, some more bandaged and bloody that others._

 _Cyan slid the window open. She had dark circles under her eyes, and her face was drawn. Probably she hadn't had time to get any decent sleep in a while, "Ruby. Is your team…?"_

 _"We're… not great," Ruby felt herself on the verge of tears. Blake and Yang hadn't come back. She took a deep breath and soldiered on, "Not hurt—not too badly hurt anyway, that I know of," she faltered—Weiss was still recovering, "Are you-?"_

 _"Come in," the other woman stepped away from the window to make room, "Gregor's… he won't hurt you."_

 _"He's here?" Ruby kept her voice steady. She folded Crescent Rose and slid inside feet first, rubbing her arms to warm up while Cyan got the window shut again. The cramped quarters looked almost cozy in the low light, but the smell of sweat and unwashed bodies was thick in the air. The townsfolk watched Ruby with wary expressions._

 _When Cyan finished straightening the curtain, she turned to Ruby, searching her face before leading the way down to the kitchen where they both lingered in the doorway._

 _Ruby's gaze was drawn immediately to the huge man stretched out on the table. His barrel chest rose and fell, hitching with pain as the steely glow of what must have been his aura waxed and waned. The thick wooden table creaked under him._

 _Cyan answered her questioning gaze, "He's taking up Gale's mantle as guardian of James Point. His men found some of your supplies."_

 _She gestured to the wall, where Weiss's two white cases of Dust stood. Ruby paled, "What did he do?"_

 _"Dust modification," Cyan breathed, "It's an old practice. He'll be like Gale, but he chose gravity Dust," she paused, wringing the edge of her apron, "I think he's planning to bring the mountain down, or at least seal the tunnels."_

 _Gregor, the man who hurt Weiss, infused with some kind of gravity power? Ruby's mouth had a bad taste in it. She swallowed to clear it, "Blake and Yang left. I think they went to get help."_

 _Cyan shut the door to the kitchen softly, leaving them in the dim light of the hall. "I know. They stopped here to drop off supplies."_

 _For a moment, Ruby looked as if she'd been struck. Yang and Blake had told the townsfolk they were leaving? She tried to listen as Cyan continued._

 _"You should go too. Gregor won't forgive you, even when we need the help."_

 _"Will you?" Ruby's voice came out small. When Cyan hesitated, she went on, "I'm—I didn't mean… it's way too much to, just—"_

 _She broke off as Cyan took her hand. She held it hard with both of hers, anguish behind her eyes, "Ruby."_

 _Everyone was hurt. People were dead. Her sister was gone. The weight of it all threatened to crush the young team leader. Her words kept tumbling out, "It was an accident. We didn't—"_

 _"It couldn't have been anything else," Cyan brushed Ruby's hair out of her eyes, "Don't try to take the blame for all of this."_

 _She waited for Ruby to get a better hold on herself, and then released her hand and stepped back to the door, "I'll get your partner's things. If you make it back to your school, try to send us someone? At least to get our communications up again."_

 _Ruby scrubbed her eyes on her sleeve, "Okay. I mean, we will. I promise we will."_

 _A minute later upstairs by the window, Ruby was bracing while one of the townsfolk upstairs strapped one of Weiss's cases of Dust to her back. A few of them gazed at her with bleak expressions, as if they expected to never see her again. Cyan went to the window and there was a flicker of blue—her aura? Ruby watched, curious._

 _The man strapping the case to her gave a rasping chuckle. "Guess you thought the bats skipped digging into this house for no reason?"_

* * *

 _Back in the cabin, Weiss lay awake, watching the small remains of the fire. Ruby had banked it, but a few loose coals still glowed in the darkness._

 _She was alone, not counting Drei. The enormous dog curled up on the couch next to her. He snored a bit, but he was warm. The heiress listened and waited, Myrtenaster close at hand in case of Grimm. Ruby had woken her up to let her know she'd be making the trip to the infirmary, and she was due back any minute._

 _Something clumped on the roof._

 _Probably Ruby, Weiss thought as she closed her hand over Myrtenaster's hilt. The material of her gloves creaked as she gripped hard. She didn't have a lot of energy, but she had enough to get up and pick her way to the crates that served as the step up to the door hatch. She crouched, catching her breath._

 _Cautious footsteps made their way across the length of the roof above. Seconds stretched unbearably. Then a knock came at the improvised door. Three short, followed by two heavier ones._

 _Weiss rolled her eyes with some relief—it was Ruby's secret knock. The knock came again before she had a chance to climb up._

 _"Be patient. I'm coming," she grumbled, standing up shakily and wrestling the ill-fitting door bar free._

 _When the door came open, Ruby slid in feet first, almost toppling the crates as she hugged onto Weiss._

 _"What—stop it, you dolt, you're going to make us fall," Weiss shoved the other girl away. Her knees just about buckled, but she caught herself on the crate before she could fall to the floor._

 _Ruby helped steady her, "I'm sorry—are you okay?"_

 _"Yes," Weiss brushed her hands away from her shoulders and straightened up, "Well? What happened?"_

 _Ruby went silent for a minute, "We have to leave."_

* * *

"Cyan said Gregor would be up by the morning," Ruby explained, poking at the fire. She chanced a glance up at Yang. "So we threw everything in the sled and left. Well, we took gear and stuff from the house we were in, and some of the townsfolk at the clinic gave me a map with all the big Grimm moves charted on it."

Yang had gone silent, her eyes focused on her own snow crusted boots. She stayed that way until Blake and the little girl were finally close enough to call to the group.

"The river is frozen solid here," Blake announced, disappointment showing in her drooping ears as they came to a stop beside Yang. Blake released the little girl's hand and smiled down at her, then leered at the surrounding forest. "I'm going to have to hunt."

Weiss remained quiet, but Ruby hopped up, dusting snow from her cloak, "You need anything from the sled?"

The little girl hung onto the edge of Blake's coat, hugging close to her legs and looking up at the other team members, her ears tall and curious.

For a brief moment, Blake considered asking for Ruby herself to come along. Nothing quite like having a sniper with unparalleled skill on your team when on a hunt. But the longer she thought about it, the less she wanted to suggest anything that would result in Ruby killing anything other than a soulless creature of Grimm.

Blake placed a hand on the little girl's head, rubbing gently between her ears. "I'd like to borrow Drei, actually."

From his position curled up at Ruby's feet, the dog in question lifted his head, ears perking at hearing his name.

"Oh, uh, sure," Ruby moved to unhook Drei's traces. Was Drei a hunting dog? He'd definitely eaten a Grimm earlier. She glanced up at the skyline. Some of the boulders seemed oddly square, and it made her feel a little off. When she got the dog loose, she bundled up the strips of leather and dropped them into the front of the sled, "Shoot up a signal if you run into any trouble."

The little girl, sensing that Blake was going someplace, rested her head on her leg shyly.

Once freed of the reins, Drei shook himself off and trotted over to Yang, licking her face until she cracked a smile and threw her arms around his neck. "You be good for Blakey okay?"

Blake raised a brow at her partner, then knelt down to the little girl's level. She tucked a stray strand of hair behind one of her human ears. "Can you keep these three company while I find us some dinner?"

The tiny Faunus's ears went back and she hugged onto Blake, nuzzling under her chin and whining softly.

Blake nuzzled back, dropping a kiss between the girl's flattened ears. "I'll be back before you know it," she picked her up and set her gently in Yang's lap. "You signal too, if you need me back here."

Yang wrapped her arms loosely around the girl's middle, but raised a brow at her partner. "You're not going alone."

"I'm not," Blake agreed, lightly patting her thigh to summon Drei to her side.

"That's not what I meant and you know it," Yang pouted as the dog happily circled Blake, ready for adventure.

Blake rolled her eyes and smiled, one ear twisting to the side to keep track of Yang and the little girl as she turned to leave, glancing back at Ruby and Weiss on her way to the tree line, "I'll be back before night fall."

"Happy hunting," Ruby lifted her hand in a wave as Blake jogged off into the trees. Then she noticed Weiss frowning and nudged her, "she'll be back."

"What? No," Weiss got up and moved away from Yang and the tiny Faunus, who had settled into her arms. "I was just thinking about the town we were supposed to find here."

She scuffed her boot over a piece of wood embedded in the snow and glanced at Ruby. Quick as anything, Ruby scurried over and helped her pry it up. It was long and straight, with four corners at one end. The other end was splintered and broken.

Ruby looked at it and swallowed. "Maybe we didn't pass it."

* * *

 **A/N: RIP random town.**

 **Long chapter today, so let us know what you think, or just ramble to us in the reviews. As always, stay tuned!**

 **\- Fiercesomest**

 **EDIT: jcL107 suggested italicizing the flashbacks to make it easier to tell what's going on. What a great suggestions! Thanks, pal! See you next week!**


	41. Dead Weight

**A/N: Hey all! Sorry this is a day late, yesterday was kind of insane. Not quite as insane as the days these poor girls are having, but you know ;3**

 **HUGS,**  
 **D**

* * *

Evening snuck up on the valley. By the time Yang looked up, the sun was already half-hidden behind the mountain ridges, bathing the area in shadow. The darkness of night was swift to follow. Digging up the scattered pieces of an utterly destroyed town helped pass the time more quickly than the brawler expected... not that it helped the toxic pit of dread slowly eating away at her from the inside out.

Blake was late, the town where they were supposed to have resupplied had been wrecked by... something, and there were only ruins remaining. Granted, thanks to the enormous slab of concrete they'd found, likely once the foundation of a house, they had a fantastically solid level area for Ruby to cobble together a surprisingly respectable spit-roasting mechanism using the scrap wood and metal they'd unearthed.

Currently, Yang sat next to their tiny Faunus charge, quietly holding one of her hands as the little girl used a damp stick to poke at the low flames of the fire pit they'd built together. Ruby and Weiss sat together on the other side of the fire, poring over the map again. They were discussing something - Yang wasn't really listening though. Mostly she was trying to avoid thinking about Blake being out in the forest alone, amethyst eyes slowly trailing up and down the treeline her partner had vanished into.

"It's too far out of the way. We don't even know if it still exists," Weiss waved a hand to their immediate surroundings, "What if it's just this place all over again?"

"Then at least we can tell somebody," Ruby looked the map over again. "It would only take a day. Maybe two days. And if it is a village, we can stock up and find someone to look after..." she tipped her head towards the little girl.

"Robin," Weiss said. She straightened her coat when Ruby looked at her funny. "It was sewn in the back of her shirt collar."

That finally caught Yang's attention. "What's that? Cutie here's got a name after all?" The brawler was halfway to patting the little girl's head when a rustle came from somewhere behind them. Yang whipped around, relief washing her fears away upon seeing Blake, unharmed, jogging towards them out of the treeline, clearly out of breath. Of course, she must have realized she was late and was running back... but where was Drei and _what on Remnant was that thing?!_

Raw, skinless, headless, dripping a trail of blood, a freakish creature had bounded out of the treeline, loping awkwardly after Blake, chasing her. Yang was on her feet in a split second, sprinting towards her partner, Ember Celica cocked and ready to fire. "Blake! Behind y-"

Blake glanced behind her and stopped short, holding her hands out. "Yang, stop."

Surprised by the sudden command, the brawler did her best to skid to a halt and failed miserably, crashing into Blake's outstretched arms. The thing caught up to them... and licked Yang's hand, woofing in triumph.

Yang blanched, realizing upon closer inspection that the thing was actually Drei, wearing the skinned and gutted carcass of an enormous... deer? Moose? Something. It was really hard to tell without a head. Blake had secured it to the dog with her ribbon, complete with a cute little bow around his neck. It almost made up for his hideous new coat of bloodied pinkish-red fur.

Blake smirked. "Sorry I'm late."

Ruby's jaw had dropped. She snapped her mouth shut and tried to de-tangle the little Faunus girl from her cloak, where she'd scurried to hide when Yang got up.

"What in the world," Weiss approached the dog, throwing her hands out at the entire bloody-meat-on-fur situation before her, "Could you possibly have found a more unsanitary way to transport this?"

Blake shrugged, "I could have dragged it through the dirt."

"You could have left the skin on. And it's _snow_ ," in the twilight Weiss gestured to the entire frozen valley, "It's been snow for days. Why could you not drag it in snow?!"

"Weiss, it's..." Ruby managed to get the little girl in her arms and joined the others, grimacing at the long, no-longer-white hairs that were probably going to be in all of their food from now on. "It's... fine. I'm sure it was the fastest way to go, or something."

She glanced at Blake for confirmation while Weiss whined, crouching by Drei's head (but not touching him), "He's a mess! It's going to freeze in his fur," sighing, she addressed the dog despairingly, "We'll never get you clean..."

"Aw c'mon Weiss, I can clean these guys up no sweat! Just melt up some of this endless snow and-"

"Weiss," Blake briefly placed a hand on Yang's shoulder to stop her, then crossed her arms, allowing herself the barest hint of a smirk, "Have you ever dragged a dead body through the snow?"

"Oh, I have!" Yang raised a hand.

Blake stared openly at her partner.

The brawler's enthusiasm took a hard curb at Blake's wide-eyed look. "Well, I guess technically not a dead body, just Ruby's dead weight - she really did _not_ want to come inside from making snow-weapons this one time-"

"I put up much more of a fight than a dead body, thank you very much," Ruby hiked the little girl in her arms up a bit. The tiny Faunus stared at the meat covered dog with wide eyes.

Weiss straightened up from examining the bloody, messy Drei and shot Blake a low level glare before turning and storming through the snow back to the campfire.

Blake took that chilling response as a no, but she wouldn't let herself chuckle, not when she actually felt kind of bad about not being strong enough to drag the stupid thing through the snow like she'd planned. Her smirk faded a bit as she turned to face Yang, eyes darting to Drei and their catch. "I hope you weren't kidding about being able to clean them..."

She honestly hadn't expected to take down such a large deer, which, more food was better of course, but bringing someone with her to help her get it back to camp would have been nice. Except that she didn't exactly like to have company on hunts. There was something about killing living things (other than fish for some reason) that she didn't want others to see... So, strapping the thing to Drei was the only alternative she'd been able to come up with.

Yang brightened up in an instant. "You bet I can," she crushed her partner to her in a brief hug, "Leave it to me, Blakey! C'mon boy," the brawler led the dog away, snatching up the pot sitting by their fire on the way to a large white drift of untouched snow.

For a while, Blake allowed herself a half-smile, simply watching Yang easily lift the carcass from Drei's back, set it in the snowbank, and shower the dog with praise. She then turned to Ruby and the little Faunus girl in her arms, smile slipping a few notches. "I ran across a den of Ursa out near that ridge." She motioned with her head to an outcropping of rock jutting up over the treeline in the distance, but wasn't sure if Ruby could see if in the dark, so she clarified, "It's a few miles east. They didn't see me, but I saw them."

Ruby hummed in acknowledgement as she looked toward the ridge she thought Blake was indicating. Ursa were usually a little less active in the winter- probably the team would be fine camping just overnight. They'd just keep a careful eye out on watch.

"Oh!" Ruby perked up. Her arms were full so she put her chin on top of the little Faunus girl's head, "Her name's Robin! We found out right before you got back."

Blake's eyes lit up. Hands on her knees, she bent to reach eye level with the little girl... with Robin. It was an unusual name, not because she was a fox Faunus, but because surnames aside, most Faunus tended to avoid naming their children after animals in general - anything to help distance themselves from association with the very animals people assumed them to be.

Then again, she supposed some parents might do so intentionally in defiance of such ridiculous prejudices... Regardless, the little girl now had a name she could use, and Blake smiled. "Robin... what a lovely name. It suits you." She noticed her shivering a bit, holding tight to the edge of Ruby's cloak and attempting to pull around herself, "You want to go back to the fire where it's warm?"

The girl, Robin, abandoned the cloak and squirmed to get down from Ruby's arms.

"Whoa, okay!" Ruby let her go and she climbed through the knee-deep (to a tiny Faunus) snow to cling to Blake's legs.

Eyes flashing a brief apology to Ruby, Blake scooped Robin up out of the snow and into her arms, nuzzling between her Faunus ears. This was one hundred percent worth subjecting herself to a biting cold spot-cleaning with snow to wash away the blood and grime stuck to her from the hunt.

Together, she and Ruby trudged back through Weiss's path in the snow to the concrete slab, which took a second to register with Blake. Sparing a glance at Yang to check her progress - the brawler had cranked her semblance and was currently wrestling Drei down into a rapidly melting sinkhole of snow - Blake turned to Ruby with a questioning tilt of her head as they stepped down onto the very level and very obviously man-made surface. "So... it looks like we found the town after all?"

"Yeah..." Ruby looked around again at what they had thought were square-ish boulders, but were actually corners of buildings, thrown everywhere, like they'd been blown apart. Firelight flickered over the lichen-covered slabs. Ruby smiled at the way Robin had snuggled up in Blake's arms, and nudged her with her shoulder, "Looks like we'll have our passenger a little longer."

Weiss ignored them, jabbing a broken spar of wood at the fire so it sent up sparks.

Blake's arms tightened around the girl in her lap. Part of her realized it was foolish to be getting attached to someone she would ultimately have to part ways with... but at this point there was no helping it. With a sigh, she rested her chin between the girl's fox ears and watched Yang from afar.

After what felt like an eternity, Yang somehow managed to clean up Blake's kill to a level that she assumed even Weiss might be pleased with, and with great pride, she brought the beast over for the heiress to examine. "How about that huh? Not even a single hair left!"

A very clean, dry, and permanently-stained-pinkish-red Drei came up behind her with a cheerful bark, wanting to play more.

"It still seems like a lot of work that could easily have been avoided by not half-butchering it out in the woods," Weiss got up and turned her back on the raw carcass as she went to the sled to make sure all their gear was strapped down properly.

Ruby frowned at her partner and watched her refuse to touch the newly pink Drei. She passed Blake a cup of weak but warm tea, "I think she's just mad his fur got messed up."

Little Robin tipped her head back to see Blake's face.

The older Faunus watched Weiss leave, expression bearing an insoluble mixture of concern and irritation.

"Or she's just mad at everything like always," Yang supplied, almost pouting.

"That... could also be true," Ruby admitted. She gestured to Blake's kill, "That's huge though. I forgot to say but Blake we should be set for like a week. Do you need any help... er...?"

She made motions with both hands to indicate slicing the carcass up.

Blake pursed her lips, finally looking away from Weiss to her other teammates. To Yang, she flashed a warm smile of thanks, prompting a megawatt smile from the brawler in return. To Ruby, she offered a smile more apologetic in nature. "Actually, if you two could get it started for me... It's easiest to cut up after it's cooked." She briefly squeezed Robin to her chest, nuzzling between the little girl's Faunus ears before handing her off to Ruby, idly tucking a strand of hair behind one of her human ears before speaking softly to her, "I'll be right back. Keep an eye on Ruby and Yang for me." Without leaving room for refusal, Blake stood and followed Weiss towards the sled.

Ruby and Yang watched Blake go. They shared a look.

"... well, maybe there won't be too much yelling," Ruby sighed, slumping down on the broken chunk of stone with Robin in her lap.


	42. Late Night Chat

**A/N: Hey! So last week e-mail notifications were down. Not sure if that's the case this week, but there's a chapter before this one! (Easy to miss since we're starting off the chapter with Angry Weiss (TM). Angry Ruby? Something big must have happened. Angry Weiss? Ah, it's Saturday again.)**

 **And away we go!**

 **\- Fiercesomest**

* * *

Weiss had checked and rechecked all the ties, traces, couplings, and buckles holding the sled and its gear together. The ice she'd used to help patch the bottom of the sled had cracks in it after the day's travel. Myrtenaster's chamber spun to blue and Weiss summoned a glyph to patch the slight damage, ignoring the approach of Blake's footsteps in the snow.

Stopping a few feet away, Blake stood and watched Weiss work. She crossed her arms, quietly waiting for the heiress to acknowledge her presence, her frown deepening a notch for every second she was ignored... which lasted for all of about five seconds before Blake's patience failed. Sidling right up into the heiress's personal space - a surefire method for garnering a response - Blake leaned back against the side of the sled, watching Ruby and Yang fit her catch onto the roasting mechanism. "You know, most people say thank you when someone brings them dinner," she said quietly, tone and expression flat.

Weiss dropped her glyph and turned to Blake with an icy glare, "I'm trying to work."

Blake simply raised a brow, unperturbed. "On what? Being antisocial?"

"On the contrary, there's a crack in our major means of transportation," Weiss jabbed a finger at the stress fractures in the ice at the bottom of the sled. She sighed, bracing her gloved hands on the sides. "Did you need something?"

For a while, Blake said nothing, amber eyes carefully searching Weiss's sharpened ice-blue for a trace of anything other than irritation.

"I need you to tell me what's wrong," she said at last, Faunus ears lifting from their curious tilt to stand at attention, "You're grouchier than usual."

"I am not 'grouchy'," Weiss snapped. She fastened her attention back on the sled, summoning her glyph with a flick of her wrist. Grumbling, she added, "I'm just trying to make sure we make it back to Beacon before another town ends up like this one."

Being on watch duty every night for more than a week didn't exactly help her general stress level. It was impossible to sleep in the sled during the day (at least for her) and there was always so much to be done around camp that she couldn't just collapse as soon as they picked a spot for the night. Plus, they now had a small child to worry about. Weiss set her jaw- she would deny all this to her grave, of course. At least to Blake, who had apparently decided to vie with Ruby and Yang for the 'most irritating person in the world' award.

There - just for a moment - Blake caught sight of it, buried alive underneath a mountain of prickles, the heart of the cactus. Exhaustion.

Lips pursed, the Faunus pushed herself away from the sled. "That's what we're all trying to do." She moved to leave, but turned back briefly to soften what had felt too much like a parting shot. "Come join us when you're done. Dinner will be waiting for you."

Answer in hand, Blake strode away without waiting for a response, making a beeline for her team leader.

Weiss glared after her, then focused back on her self-appointed task.

* * *

"Where's your face? Where's... There's your face!" Ruby laughed and nuzzled the tiny giggling Faunus in her lap who'd peeked up at her. It was a nonsense game she played with other little kids (and also Zwei), and it passed the time while they waited for the food to be ready.

Yang looked up from her task of evening out the pile of hot coals beneath the roast, "Blakey!" she called in greeting, sneaking a thumbs up to her sister, as there had indeed been no yelling.

Upon reaching the concrete, Blake flashed a smile to her partner, but was all business as she approached her team leader. "Ruby. Whatever you do, do not let Weiss take watch tonight."

Ruby looked up at Blake and went serious. "Is she okay?"

Robin clung to Ruby's cloak and looked up too, leaning her head back super far to see.

"No," Blake sighed, "But I imagine she'll be fine if we can just get her to rest."

"You'd have better luck getting a Beowolf to lie down and roll over," Yang almost laughed, but raised a brow when Drei actually rolled over at her command. She rubbed the dog's belly. "Come to think of it though, Weiss has been on watch like... every night."

"Yeah..." and Ruby had let her. They hadn't had much of a choice when they were booking it after Yang and Blake, and now that they'd found them... between not trusting them to stick around and not wanting to share a sleeping bag, Weiss had been awake half the night, every night. Not that the whole team hadn't been running low on sleep since the blizzard back in James Point... but the whole team hadn't been as injured as Weiss, and the rest of them had had nights off by now. Even if those nights off came with nightmares.

Truth be told, Ruby had kind of been hoping Weiss would sleep some during the day, but if she had, Ruby hadn't caught her doing it.

She bit her lip, trying to think whether to offer Yang and Blake a turn at watch (at the risk of the proposal being harshly refused by Weiss) or to take watch herself and hope for the best for Blake or Yang, whoever wound up sharing a bed with her prickly partner.

In the end, dinner came first. Blake's kill was a little gamey, and they didn't have much in the way of salt, but after a long day in the frozen mountains Ruby could have eaten tree bark and called it awesome. The meat was amazing.

Weiss didn't complain either. She scrubbed her plate with snow and shook it clean, "I volunteer for watch."

"Let me take first watch," Blake counter-offered, tipping a bit of her unfinished food onto Robin's immaculately clean plate, "I'm still wired from the hunt, and this," she gestured to the enormous amount of remaining roast, "still needs to be sectioned and smoked."

"Oh, then give me second watch," Yang added, raising the hand she'd been resting on Drei's head, "I'm feelin' pretty good after a hearty meal like this. I could make everyone breakfast!"

Weiss frowned, looking between the two of them, "What? No, you can't both be-"

"Sounds great!" Ruby banged her plate on the concrete slab she'd perched on and jumped at the unexpectedly loud sound. Robin looked up from the plate she was licking clean in Blake's lap, ears pinned back. Ruby grimaced, "Uh, right. Weiss and I will get some rest while you guys deal with the cooking."

The heiress opened her mouth but shut it again.

Ruby thanked her stars- even Weiss didn't want a repeat of the week of baked beans. "So that's all set."

Blake could practically feel the collective flood of relief from both Ruby and Yang once Weiss relented. Releasing a soundless sigh of her own, she pressed her face between Robin's Faunus ears, hiding a victorious half-smile in the little girl's hair.

* * *

"They're out cold."

Black velvet ears twisted to catch her partner's surprisingly passable attempt at a silent approach. Amber eyes lifted to meet amethyst, one brow raising in a silent skepticism that had the brawler lifting her hands and smiling.

"Okay maybe not cold, actually they look kinda warm and snuggly," Yang smirked, glancing over at the sleeping bag that currently held Ruby and Weiss.

In an effort to make sure their exhausted heiress had nothing to do when she eventually woke, the brawler had taken it upon herself to stay up a little bit longer and tidy up the campsite. As a result, she was able to watch exhaustion claim Weiss almost immediately - something she fully planned on mercilessly teasing her about later. She also got to see her little sister drop like a rock not minutes later, curling right up to the heiress in a bid for warmth that would more than likely end in some kind of embarrassed shriek come morning. Yang dearly wished their scrolls still worked so she could take a picture.

For now though, she sat beside Blake at the fire. Technically, it wasn't a fire at the moment, just a pile of smoldering wood - they had been lucky enough to find splintered remnants of what looked like it was once a nice set of hand-carved oak chairs. It smelled fantastic, and still gave off enough warmth that they had set up the second sleeping bag for Robin right beside it. The little Faunus was fast asleep, using Drei as a pillow and an extra source of warmth.

"You should sleep too."

Yang blinked, then shrugged, scooting close until her side was pressed up against Blake's. "Eh, I'm not tired yet."

Blake hummed in response, but said nothing more, quietly staring straight ahead, lost in thought.

They sat together in silence long enough for Yang to lose track of time, but with each stolen glance at her partner, the gradual darkening of those amber eyes made something in her heart twist, pulling at her until she just had to say something. "Blake-"

"I'll cover for you." Blake turned her head, looked her partner square in the eye.

Yang seized up. She didn't need to ask for clarification. She knew exactly what Blake was talking about - the same thing she'd been unable to stop thinking about, no matter how much she put on a smile for the team. Her heart sank into her stomach. "I'm..." She turned away, gaze dropping to the ground. "I don't think I can do it."

She couldn't bring herself to lie about something like this. Not to her friends... her professors. Some of the tension building in her shoulders bled away upon feeling Blake's hand come to rest atop her own. "I could never force Ruby and Weiss to carry a secret like that... or you," she met Blake's gaze evenly.

"I'm well-versed in secret keeping," Blake flicked an ear.

"...Okay, yeah, good point. But being a Faunus is just a teensy bit different from being a..." Murderer. The word died on her lips, but Blake squeezed her hand as though she'd said it anyway, and Yang tried not to think about the level of understanding flashing deep in her partner's eyes. "I... I have to own up to it."

"You already have," Blake looked as though she'd been about to say something else, Faunus ears flattening in what could have been frustration or sadness - Yang wasn't quite sure. She wasn't sure about of lot of things, lately.

"I mean, I guess have no idea what the consequence is for something like this... but I can't just... get away with it. That feels wrong." Yang's eyes strayed to her little sister. The villains, monsters, and killers in Ruby's story books always had to face justice in the end.

"Punishing you for an honest mistake - for something that's already happened and can't be changed feels wrong too," Blake frowned.

Yang's self-loathing eased up a bit. Another good point from Blake - a mistake was at least a few notches up from _intentionally_ setting an endless horde of Grimm on an unsuspecting town. It didn't change the end result though... people had lost their lives. Sighing, Yang ran her free hand through her hair. "Maybe I'll... just get expelled or something."

Blake bristled, "I don't want another partner."

Yang pulled her hand from Blake's grasp in order to throw her arm around the scowling Faunus's shoulders in a show of what was ultimately false courage. "Aw, don't worry Blakey, who knows, they might fix you up with someone cute-"

"I'm serious," Blake growled, pushing Yang's hand from her shoulder and gripping the brawler's upper arm, "If Beacon expels you, I'm leaving too."

Eyes wide, Yang mirrored Blake's grip and tried to gently shake some sense into her. "Blake. No. That's stupid. I'm not letting you end your career as a huntress just because I-"

"We can go somewhere else," Blake cut Yang's refusal short, pressing onward when she realized her interruption had the brawler stunned. Yang wasn't the only one who'd been considering this subject at length. "There are three other schools we can apply to. Well, two anyway. Atlas... probably wouldn't be good for either of us, but I'm sure Sun and Neptune could put in a good word for us at Haven. Barring that, I've heard that Shade is very open to new students... doesn't ask many questions..."

Yang simply stared at her partner, dumbfounded. In time, she found her voice, but it was soft, hesitant. "You would... come with me?"

Relaxing her death grip on Yang's arm, Blake took a breath, and smirked. "What, did you seriously think I'd let you go it alone?"

The brawler bit her lip, holding back a surprised snicker and what may or may not have been tears at hearing her very own words parroted back to her.

Dropping the smirk for a gentler smile, Blake's ears began to twitch with nervous energy, but she pushed herself to keep going, confident that the darkness of the hour would keep Yang from noticing the warmth she felt creeping into her cheeks. "Yang, I fully intend on being your partner until we both graduate... and... and beyond. If you'll have me."

Partners sticking together after graduation was never a sure thing, many went their separate ways, formed temporary alliances between taking solo missions, which was all well and good, but Blake held her breath, hoping theirs could be a different fate.

Looking as though she had won the lotteries of all four kingdoms of Remnant simultaneously, Yang flushed and sputtered, trying to get her words to come out right. "I... Yeah. Yes. I'd like that a lot."

All at once, relief washed the weight of uncertainty from Blake's mind, leaving her with a light, almost playful feeling. "Good." Mentally marking that matter as settled for the time being, Blake switched tracks. Using the arm she already had a hold of, she pulled the brawler close, whispering into her ear, "Do you want to know what I'd like a lot?"

Yang nodded, spellbound.

Leaning back, Blake pointed to the sleeping bag currently holding Robin. "For you to get some sleep, so you can actually be awake for morning watch."

Spell broken, Yang pouted, but it lasted for all of a second before she grinned, crushing Blake to her chest in a steel-trap bearhug. "Blake, you are seriously the best, you know that?"

Blake rolled her eyes, managing to push her partner away just far enough to affectionately bump Yang's forehead with her own. "We'll see if I retain that title when I wake you up three hours from now."

Yang pulled her back in for one last squeeze before finally letting go and getting to her feet. "Sleep ain't got nothin' on you."

The compliment caught Blake off guard, but she recovered quickly, "That's high praise coming from someone who once took ten naps in one day."

"You know it." Shoes off and safely set aside, Yang threw a wink at her partner before carefully wriggling her way into the sleeping bag next to the little Faunus girl. Pulling her close, Yang let her eyes fall shut.

"Yang." Blake called softly. She continued only once her Faunus ears picked up her partner's nigh inaudible hum of curiosity. "You're the best, too."

Though the brawler didn't audibly respond, her lips curved in a slight smile - one that remained even as she slept.

* * *

 **A/N: Let's get some rest, guys.**

 **Also congrats to you recent college grads! Have fun out in the big wide world!**

 **\- Fiercesomest**


	43. Fallen Forest

Ruby started awake in a cold sweat. She lay still, just breathing for a few seconds, and then rolled onto her back and wriggled up a couple of inches to see past the top of the sleeping bag.

The pewter sky lay close over the peaks. The clouds were lighter in the east, behind the peaks. She had snowflakes in her hair, she found. A few more were sifting down around them.

A quick glance found Yang at the low campfire, poking the coals with a piece of broken chair. She could see the top of Blake's bow in the sleeping bag nearby, and she felt Weiss breathing deep and slow next to her. Some fragment of her dream left her with a bad taste in her mouth, but being awake and seeing her teammates all here together, all safe for now... Ruby relaxed for a minute.

Judging by the light it was barely after dawn. They didn't have to get up quite yet. She looked down at the white head of hair showing just past the covers. Determination rose in her chest. They would get back to Beacon and send help for James Point. That was the best they could do.

Ruby started to push herself up on her elbows, but Weiss stirred. And... she really did need the sleep. Ruby settled back down, fishing her map from her coat pocket and unfolding it as quietly as she could to look over the day's route.

Coals properly settled, Yang stood and stretched, leaving the pot of supremely basic meat stew to continue its slow simmer as she surveyed the camp. Blake and the little Faunus were still buried deep in their sleeping bag, looking so peaceful and serene that Yang couldn't help but smile. Beside the pair, Drei had wedged himself between the side of their sleeping bag and the low burning coals. He was awake, but apparently had no intentions of moving from his spot, though he did lazily wag his tail when Yang looked his way.

Looking over to Ruby and Weiss's side of camp, Yang realized Drei wasn't the only one awake. If Ruby was up, that meant Weiss would probably wake soon too... well, maybe. Either way, she was not going to miss the fireworks.

Treading lightly, she made her way to Ruby's side of the sleeping bag and settled down beside her, leaning over her shoulder to look at the map as well.

Ruby looked up at her and tipped her head to give Yang's arm an affectionate bump. She miscalculated and hit too hard, though, right on her elbow. Bone hit bone and she ducked, rubbing her head, "Ouch!"

Beside her, Weiss groaned and shifted closer under the covers, snuggling against Ruby's side. Ruby couldn't help giggling through her pain, "That tickles, Weiss."

Hearing her name, the heiress blinked awake. It took her a second to place where she was, and then realized she was in a sleeping bag with Ruby, both hands buried in the younger girl's cloak. Yang hovered over her sister's shoulder. Weiss blanched and shoved at Ruby, struggling to get up and away, "What are you doing?! Ugh! Get off me!"

"Ow, hey!" Ruby shielded herself with her arms, "I wasn't even on you!"

"Yeah princess," Yang's grin was brighter than the sun itself, "Don't think I don't see you over there, gettin' all friendly with my little sis."

In point two seconds Weiss was out of and fifteen feet away from the sleeping bag. She yanked her boots the rest of the way on, still yelling, "I was asleep! It's not my fault that your delusional mind sees two teammates trying not to freeze to death and immediately jumps to the conclusion that they're being 'friendly'!"

Ruby struggled out of the tangle of her cloak and the sleeping bag. She blew hair out of her face, plucking the map out of the snow and brushing it off.

Even while snickering at Weiss's marvelous song and dance of denial, Yang couldn't help but instinctively try to smooth down some of Ruby's wild bedhead, but when it proved to be an exercise in futility as always she gave up, throwing her arms around Ruby's shoulders and resting her head atop Ruby's in defeat. At least teasing Weiss was turning out to be a complete success. Relentless, Yang winked at the fuming heiress. "Oh Weiss, don't be shy, it's okay, I know my sister is irresistibly cuddly~"

"Cut it out, Yang," Ruby grumbled, still straightening out the map. Messing with Weiss could be fun, but it didn't feel very nice to have somebody throw themselves away from you so fast. It wasn't like she was dirty or anything. At least, she wasn't any more dirty than yesterday when they went to sleep. Ruby shoved the map back into her pocket, noting that the sky had gotten darker, not lighter. The clouds hung heavy and gray overhead, "Guess we'd better get going early if we're going to beat the snow."

"Finally, some sense," Weiss huffed, storming to the fire in search of coffee.

Still giggling, Yang pressed an apologetic kiss to the top of Ruby's head and released her, pushing herself to her feet and jogging over to the campfire to pour Weiss a hot, caffeinated peace offering.

Not too long after, Blake forced herself to get up. She'd been roused by Weiss's blustering at first, and when she eventually realized she wouldn't be able to fall back asleep, she very reluctantly dragged herself and an equally sleepy Robin over to the campfire - which had been stoked back into an actual fire.

Weiss was sipping coffee with a scowl, no surprises there, Ruby was examining the sky, and Yang was walking towards them with a smile. The brawler stopped just long enough to snag Blake in a quick side hug and ruffle Robin's hair before leaving to roll up their sleeping bag.

Smirking at the sight of Yang trying (and failing) to forcibly remove Drei from the abandoned sleeping bag, Blake led Robin to take a seat with her beside Ruby. She followed her team leader's gaze up to the darkening clouds. "Worried about the weather?"

"Yeah. Snow could help keep the Grimm out of James Point, though," she gave Blake a half-smile, "Think it'll be anything major?"

Robin climbed her way up into Blake's lap, ears down flat.

Blake ran a hand through the little girl's hair, tucking a few strands behind on of her human ears as she looked to the sky, ears flattening in kind. "...We should move quickly."

* * *

With the threat of heavy snow looming, the team decided to forego the detour to the village marked on the map. Ruby hooked Drei to the sled while Weiss made sure the supplies were secure, and they were on the move in record time.

Once they got out of the higher ranges, it would be almost a straight shot through the hills to the Emerald Forest, and then up the familiar cliffs to Beacon. Ruby studied the maps and charts till she went nearly cross-eyed, but the effort kept them more or less clear of Grimm and on the wide, broken roads leftover from times past. Occasionally they passed ruins- crumbling vestiges of cities that had succumbed to the darkness and now served as lairs to Beowolves and Ursai. Fortunately, the larger creatures had a tendency to hibernate- though she thought once she saw the glow of a Death stalker's tail through the icicles hanging off an archway set into one of the low hills.

Weiss had just kept her grip on the sled as she and Ruby took their turn running beside it. There was no way it could have been a death stalker's stinger. "It would have to be the size of a van."

Ruby just swallowed uneasily and kept running. A stinger the size of a van would mean a stalker the size of a bulkhead. Even though they avoided whatever fights they could, they were low on ammunition.

Robin continued to cling to Blake, crying sometimes, and whimpering. She wanted to stop and she wanted her mom. They only stopped long enough to thaw some of Blake's catch, though, or occasionally sleep when the clouds blocked out the moon and they often woke up covered in snow.

The weather didn't turn blizzard, though. And temperatures rose slightly as they reached the forests.

"It's not so 'emerald' in the winter," Ruby said as they reached another landmark- a massive gear embedded in the earth amid the trees. Its highest teeth competed with the bare branches far above their heads. She flexed her fingers to warm them up a bit and pulled the fold of her cloak up over her mouth and nose, breathing warm air into it to thaw out her face.

Blake was taking a turn walking beside the sled, and Robin had somehow been transferred to Weiss. The heiress furiously ignored the tiny Faunus huddled in her lap, one arm gingerly across the little one's middle like a seatbelt and the other at an awkward angle gripping the side of the sled. "Are you sure this is the right forest? I thought they were supposed to be evergreen."

"Lookin' more like nevergreen trees at this point," Yang commented from her spot behind the sled, watching the forest with grim curiosity as she helped push while Drei pulled.

One of Blake's ears flattened at the wordplay, but her senses were otherwise on high alert. The forest wasn't right. In all the years the White Fang has used this forest as camping grounds during Vale's winters, she had never seen it anything other than the vibrant emerald green for which it had been named. But now... it was difficult to tell the grayish-white barren trees from the grayish-white stone of the occasional pile of ruins.

Aiming to test a theory, Blake unsheathed Gambol Shroud and slashed the next branch they passed. It fell, landing with a soft thud in the snow. Not a single speck of green graced the branch's center. Frowning, she handed the branch to Ruby. "I think the trees are dead."

Ruby took it, letting the twigs at the end drag in the snow while she examined the dead wood. She turned, speaking in a hushed voice, "Hey, Weiss-"

"I swear, if you mention me setting the forest on fire _one more time_ ," Weiss growled, causing Robin's ears to go back.

"No, no, I was going to say- what do you think could make them like this?" Ruby swallowed as she motioned to the skeletal trees all around them. They hadn't been gone that long. A month? Five weeks, tops. Ruby looked down at her worn gloves. Her cape had started to fray at the edges.

"Maybe it's just... this part," the fencer gripped the edge of the sled with one hand as she leaned, trying to gaze ahead through the trees. The only sounds in the forest besides RWBY's voices were the shush of the sled over the snow and the whisper of the wind stirring the bare branches overhead. "Maybe they'll be normal closer to Beacon."

* * *

 **A/N: Sorry this chapter ended up a little short, breaking it in any other place came out really bizarre, but AaaaAAAHH they're nearly THERE I'm excited for themmmmm~!**

 **Hugs!**  
 **D**


	44. Homecoming

**A/N: I've been looking forward to this chapter for a while.**

\- **Fiercesomest**

* * *

About midday, Ruby and Weiss switched with Yang and Blake and ran beside the sled.

By the time they reached the cliffs, the sun was starting to set. Panting, Ruby jogged over to the edge of the divide where her team and JNPR's had taken on their first Deathstalker and Nevermore. The broken ruins stood shadowed by the towering wall of black stone.

"We're almost there," she said, "We could go now, or wait till morning. But it looks like we'll have to leave the sled either way. Unless we want to go around."

Weiss kept a hand on the edge of the sled in case it decided to slide towards the deep rift.

"Well, we're probably going to have to go around anyway," Yang remarked with a wave of one hand as she sat leaned against the sled's front corner. When Blake threw her a questioning glance, the brawler straightened up a bit, "I mean, unless you've got a plan for how to get these two," she pointed to Robin in her lap and Drei at the head of the sled, "across that," she then pointed to the sheer drop where the bridge to the ruins used to be.

Ruby peered down the sheer cliffs. They vanished into the mist below. She looked to Weiss, "... ice bridge?"

Weiss rolled her eyes, "That wouldn't exactly help us get up the cliff on the other side."

"Giant ice staircase?" Ruby brightened hopping up and down in place, "Ooh! Like in that movie! You can sing all the way to the top! Please?"

"We've been travelling for weeks- I don't have enough Dust packed for a fully supported giant ice staircase. Even if I did, stairs made of ice? That's a ridiculously dangerous idea." Weiss crossed her arms with an air of finality, "I will not be responsible for one of you slipping and dying half a mile from the school."

"What about your glyphs?" Blake had a hand to her chin, amber eyes distant in thought. She'd seen Weiss cover vast distances with her semblance. "Can they hold more than one person?"

"As much as I'd love to see Weiss scale a cliff on her glyphs while carrying a dog that's about as big as she is," Yang cut in, eyes flicking from Blake, to Weiss, to Drei. The pinkish hound simply smiled back, panting. "I dunno if traumatizing this little one here with a wild ride through the air is a great idea," the brawler patted the tiny Faunus girl in her lap between the ears, lightly ruffling her hair.

Blake deflated a bit, ears visibly drooping, but she had to agree with her partner. The next logical course of action would be to split up, two of them go around with the dog and child, and two of them press onwards to Beacon... but she couldn't bring herself to suggest it, so she kept her silence.

Robin whined and tried to snuggle up closer to Yang for warmth as the sky deepened to orange.

"I mean... I guess we could just climb the cliff," Ruby frowned. The ice bridge would work to get over to what was left of the snowy ruins. They'd have to find a way to bundle Drei and Robin up, and they'd definitely have to leave the sled behind, but Beacon wasn't far if they could make it up. They'd be able to see the school from the top of the cliffs, especially if the trees were dead like the ones they'd come through.

The more she thought about it, the less she wanted to spend an extra day or two getting around this chasm. They were so close! If they were going to climb, though, they'd have to wait till morning so they could take their time getting everyone to the top. Waiting a whole night when they were only a few miles from home would be agony. Frustrated, Ruby shut her eyes and ran both gloved hands over her hair, trying to come up with an idea.

"I think one of us should go up," Weiss crossed her arms, "Not that James Point had much to recommend itself, but if they're still holding out they're going to need help as soon as possible. If we fire a distress signal from the ridge, someone at Beacon is bound to see it."

"Yeah, I'm with Weiss, but maybe two of us should go up? Because you know, the buddy system and all," Yang tapped her fingers on the edge of the sled, locking eyes with her sister, "Ruby's obviously the fastest... and I mean, you may as well take Weiss with you, right? You sped up that cliff side with her glyphs in seconds flat the last time we were here, carrying a nevermore no less."

"Yeah," Ruby thought back to that day for a second. Funny how it had seemed like such a big fight at the time. "Yeah, Weiss? Want to come?"

Weiss cleared her throat, glancing sideways and up at the few pillars that stood around them, "It's actually... very difficult to maintain a string of glyphs like that and run at the same time. Maybe Blake could go?"

One of Blake's ears twitched, eyes narrowing at the heiress, but before she could decide whether to voice her suspicions, Yang spoke up, apparently riding the same train of thought.

"Weiss," the brawler's head had dipped, and she held the edge of the sled in a death-grip, "I swear we're not going to disappear again, if that's what you're worried about."

"What? No, that's not what I meant," Weiss waved Yang off before reddening a little in the deepening shade cast by the opposite ridge, "It's just... you know keeping up with the sled wears me out. Not that I couldn't go up the cliff. Just... I'm not quite sure if I could make it back down again without a rest," glaring at Yang after that admission, she added, "Honestly, I know you won't leave again. At least you'd better not."

"Good. All right, yeah, that's good." Yang straightened up a bit, curling both arms around the tiny Faunus trying to bury herself into her lap.

Blake uncrossed her arms, unsheathed Gambol Shroud and nodded to Ruby. "Okay then. I'm ready when you are."

Ruby looked up from watching the curious little Faunus dig in Yang's almost non-existent jacket pockets. "Right."

Weiss bridged the demolished walkway with a sweep of thick, solid ice.

"Just watch your step," she cautioned before leading the way across. The wind whistled down the rift and the ice creaked where it joined the stone, but it held.

Ruby crossed after her, coaching Blake on how to run up a wall using Weiss's glyphs. "It helps me if I pretend the cliff is flat ground, and maybe lean forward a little. Ooh, also don't jump or you might fall off."

"The effect that holds you to the cliff has a spherical radius of about three feet. It's strongest in the center," Weiss tested the snow-covered stone on the other side of the makeshift bridge before putting her full weight on it. She tossed her hair and raised an eyebrow at Ruby while she spoke to Blake, "In case you needed some actual information instead of the vague but helpful advice to not jump."

"Three feet. Don't jump." Mouth set in a thin line, Blake followed Weiss and Ruby to the base of the cliff and eyed the near-vertical incline, pushing down the apprehension that came with thoughts of tripping, or a well-placed gust of wind, or nearly a million other things that could result in her dropping like the world's most ungraceful rock. Still, worst-case-scenario she should be able to catch herself just fine, so... "Okay. Sounds simple enough."

They were deep in shadow now; the sky fading to twilight as the three took their positions.

Ruby cast a quick look back towards the sled to make sure the Grimm were still keeping their distance- they hadn't seen too many, and most had seemed busy, moving west towards the city. Not so unusual, and the small pack size of the Beowolves they'd seen was a nice break from their usual number. Still, Yang would be on her own for a minute or two and a quick check in was never amiss. Ruby's breath hung in the air as she turned back to the cliff, then to Weiss and Blake.

"We're almost there guys," she grinned, bracing to run, to Blake she added, "Just follow right after me. Ready?"

With a final, longing glance back at Yang, who was pulling the dog up into the sled, and Robin, who was quietly watching her from Yang's lap, Blake turned and tried to mentally prepare herself to run as well... vertically, using an unfamiliar semblance, up a cliff...

As not ready as she felt, the Faunus took a deep breath, let it out in a steadying sigh, and firmly reminded herself to have a little more faith in her teammates. Blake looked to her team leader, mirroring her stance. "I'm ready."

At a nod from Ruby, Weiss took a step back, icy determination in her gaze as she summoned up her semblance. Myrtenaster glowed in her hand as she pointed her middle and index fingers and the sword's tip on the cliff face.

A string of pale blue glyphs sprang up in a straight line all the way up the sheer rock wall.

Ruby took off like a shot, hardly slowing down when she leapt from the snow to the vertical stone. As soon as her boots touched, the glyphs took effect, both holding her to the cliff and propelling her as she sprinted up. Wind rushed in her ears- she hardly noticed the drag of her cape as she sprinted. Twenty feet. Sixty feet. She'd be able to see Beacon from the top. And farther out, home.

Hopefully Blake was following- Ruby couldn't break focus to check till suddenly-finally- the cliff ended and Weiss's glyphs launched her up into thin air.

"Whoa!" she came down in a forward roll in the frozen grass and dirt at the top. The wind cut across the top of the cliffs sharp with the smell of snow as she laughed, straightening her cloak and shaking snow out of her sleeves and collar. Nothing like a rush to brighten your day! Well, night.

When Blake finally caught up, she too shot up into the air, eyes wide with shock as she attempted a hasty adjustment, darting downward and forward - or at least what felt like it, but was actually forward and upward - maybe? Her sense of direction was utterly shot.

She had not been prepared for the sensation of running straight off of the edge of a cliff, or the sudden shift in gravity's pull that followed, and despite her best attempts to recover, her race to the top ultimately ended with her leaving a shadow clone that dropped right back down the cliff side, while she landed flat on her back on the ground a good ten feet in front of Ruby. It knocked the wind (and any pride in her agility) clean out of her, but somewhere in the back of her mind she took dark satisfaction in the fact that this proved she was indeed more person than cat, as she did not in fact always land on her feet.

Ruby straightened up and looked to make sure Blake was alright before scurrying to the edge of the cliff and waving down to Weiss, who shrieked something back, arms flailing. The wind made it mostly unintelligible, but Ruby got the gist. She winced, and called to Blake, "I think she saw your clone and thought you fell off the cliff."

Groaning, Blake rolled over and pushed herself to her feet, stumbling over to stand beside Ruby. She waved to Weiss, who looked paler than usual, and also at Yang, who was standing in the sled, covering Robin's eyes, which she quickly uncovered so Blake could wave at them both. The brawler's beaming smile was visible even from this distance. Once she was certain they were certain she hadn't just fallen to her death, Blake side-eyed Ruby.

"Well, after landing like a sack of rocks and traumatizing our teammates and a small child, I think I'm ready to go."

"Yeah, let's signal from the top of the rise," Ruby started up the low grade obstructing their view of the school. She was already thinking about a hot shower, and cookies at the cafeteria, and of course delivering the news about James Point- her stomach dropped as it had every time she thought of the village in the past couple of weeks of travel. They'd made good time, though. There was still hope, right? After all the nightmares and lack of sleep and the deserted town and destroyed way station, there was still hope. Ruby picked up her pace, pushing through the thin, dead branches of some determined bushes clinging in the rocky soil, tired, her senses buzzed with an urgent brand of excitement, "What are you going to do first when we get back? I mean, we'll get help for James Point, of course- do you think they'll let us ride back out with Chuck?- but, okay, after that, what are you going to do? Because I am definitely going to-"

As she forced her way free of the bushes, topping the rise, she broke off.

The rest of the forest (the considerably tamer half of it) lay in a long sweep down the gentle hill towards Beacon's cliffs, and then Vale and the bay.

The sun had dipped low over the sea- Ruby could almost smell salt on the air, even though they were still too far for that to really be possible. And there was Beacon, perched like a toy castle on the edge of the cliffs.

Ruby's hand went to Crescent Rose. She could make out the outline of the school's buildings against the fading orange of the sky. They seemed... wrong. Some of the arches fell at odd angles, and the corners of the dormitories weren't right. Then she noticed the smoke, black and thick, rising in streams from someplace beyond, down in the city.

The emerald lights of Beacon's tower were gone.


	45. Up the Cliff

"So... let me get this straight. There are Grimm flying around over the school, but Amity Colosseum is nowhere to be seen, there are visible signs of smoke coming from the city, no Atlas airships, Beacon's tower is missing... and you let Ruby go ahead to check things out all by herself?"

Blake sighed, looking from Yang, who stood with her arms crossed, eyes halfway to red, down to Robin, who had come over to quietly cling to her leg to escape the burning heat coming from the brawler, then briefly to Weiss, who looked nearly as angry as Yang, in her own silently disapproving way.

It had seemed like a fair enough plan when Ruby spelled it out to her in a rush of concern for the city and their school, but she was feeling less and less confident about her choices in the face of her remaining teammates. Cringing, Blake nodded.

"Blake Belladonna so help me I am going to-"

"She didn't give me much of a choice, Yang." Blake held both hands up, trying to mollify her partner before she literally exploded into flames. "She took two flares. Two means all clear, one means anything otherwise."

"She's an idiot! You're an idiot!" Weiss flung a hand to the sheer cliff face that rose over them high enough to block out stars, "If something goes wrong-and it always goes wrong- how are we even supposed to get up to her?! How?"

Robin, apparently too anxious to simply cling, bit Blake in the leg.

Blake flinched both from the bite of Weiss's tone, and the actual teeth now sinking into her leg - at least the fabric of her pants offered a sort of barrier. "I don't know, I-" Blake's words halted in a stifled yelp when Robin began to bite down harder.

Wrangling the output of her semblance under control, Yang took pity on her partner and gently pried the little Faunus away from Blake and up into a hug, hiding her frustration and reddened gaze in the girl's hair.

"You deserved that," Weiss shot at Blake, already taking another breath to continue her tirade when Ruby vaulted over the fallen column at her back, landing right next to her in the few inches of snow with Crescent Rose in full scythe mode. Weiss flailed sideways, almost tumbling into the sled.

Ruby's red cloak pooled on the thin crust of ice atop the snow as she straightened up, determination in her silver eyes. She scrubbed them with her sleeve, only managing to highlight how red they looked around the edges.

"I found a way up the cliff," she reported to her team.

"Ruby?!" Blake and Yang shouted in unison, the former looking utterly baffled, while the latter brightened in an instant.

The brawler spared one of her arms around Robin to immediately grab and crush her sister to her side as she continued, "What were you thinking running off like that?!"

Blake only needed a moment to gather herself, tilting her head, ears lowering in confusion (and to avoid the loud barking from Drei as he pranced around his favorite person's feet). While she was beyond relieved to be off the hook, she'd obviously missed some critical aspect of the rapidfire instructions Ruby had thrown at her before zipping away. "Wait, what happened to checking things out?"

"I, uh..." Ruby scrambled to get loose from Yang and remember what she'd told Blake. She'd felt empty, and her eyes had burned like she was going to cry, and she recalled repeating 'I'll check it out, let me- I'll check it out.' and giving some excuse about the flares. After Blake had gone, Ruby had just stared at the school, tears dripping down her face and off her chin. She had to be the leader, though, so she brought up Crescent Rose and looked through her scope- she could see broken windows and Grimm, even in the deepening twilight. So many Grimm.

What had happened to Beacon?

What had happened to their home?

She snapped out of it as Weiss smacked her in the head.

"Ouch!" Ruby yelped, squirming more in Yang's grip.

"How dare you leave us behind. Especially after all the times you told us that we're a team, and that we should always stay together," Weiss clenched her fists at her side, glaring at Ruby.

"I'm sorry, I just- I needed a second, and I wasn't going to go," the sharp blow seemed to have knocked the toughness right out of her. She quit trying to keep the tears back and looked at Blake, "I didn't mean- I was coming right after you. Just, it's bad. It looks really bad."

Blake's heart sank to her feet. The tears sliding down Ruby's face served as a gut-wrenching warning that something was very, very wrong.

Yang's grip on Ruby loosened, but she kept hold of one of her hands. Blake's description of Vale's condition was finally starting to sink in, and her sister's small hiccuping sobs stirred up a deep sense of dread she hadn't felt since the day their father had sat them down to talk about Summer. "Like... how bad?"

Mountain Glenn. The description stuck in Ruby's throat. The offshoot of Vale was all broken concrete and bare steel beams. The bones of a dead city. "I didn't see any lights. Except some of the city where it looked like it was-" It looked like it was still burning. Her tears dripped onto Ember Celica.

Weiss's glare wavered. She looked from Ruby to Yang and Blake, and back again. "You said there's a way up the cliff?"

"Yeah," Ruby choked out, using her free hand to wipe her face and nose.

Blake took Weiss's cue, tried to shift her focus to something immediate, like how Yang had gone eerily silent. She was still holding Robin to her side, but her eyes were clearly somewhere else, distant even as Drei licked at her and Ruby's fingers. Blake placed a hand on her partner's shoulder, but spoke to Ruby. "Are we going by sled or by foot?"

* * *

It was an airship.

One of the big, flashy Atlas ships brought in to look after the Colosseum. In the dark, it took twenty minutes to hike along the rift to where the ruined hunk of metal lay wedged tip to tail between the sheer rock walls.

The rising moon shone off the crumpled metal.

"It's slippery," Ruby said, folding Crescent Rose so she could use her hands on the way up. They were definitely not going to take the sled.

Weiss stared at the wreck, white as a sheet. This was an Atlas ship. What had happened to it? She swallowed. "Is it sturdy enough to cross?"

The wind picked up, causing the metal to groan. Ruby studied her teammates and then the steep climb. The immediate danger of plunging off a slick metal tube into the depths of the earth made it easier to think somehow. "I made it down before, but we might want to go one at a time. I'll take a guide rope up."

They used Drei's harness to the sled, which was actually just a single line of rope that Blake had looped and knotted around the dog in lieu of an actual harness.

Even though Blake considered herself the team expert with ropes and knots, Weiss took up the task of securing the guideline around Ruby without prompting, likely trusting no one's standards of inspection but her own, which Blake couldn't fault her for - this was their team leader's life on the line... literally.

Her own internal almost-pun drew Blake's gaze to Yang, who was standing the closest to her, but was arguably the farthest away, eyes still searching some distant place, completely spaced out, probably still beating herself up for something stupid - "Yang," she whispered, harsher than she'd intended. When her partner didn't respond, Blake took hold of her chin and pulled her face around, forcing their eyes to meet, speaking low and close, "Yang, please... we need you _here_ right now."

The gentle plea seemed to bring the brawler back to her senses. She blinked a few times, shook her head, and took a deep breath, breathing a short, "Right." With a quick pass of her hand over her face, Yang's smile was back in place, and she turned to Ruby and Weiss. "So, dogs and kids first, right? I can hold the line taut."

"It's two hundred feet," Weiss finished fussing over the knot in the rope around Ruby's waist and let her cloak fall back into its normal position, "If it's not enough we'll add on the rest."

"Alright. I'll shout when I've got it secure at the top," Ruby noticed Yang's look, "Blake, you've got Robin?"

The tiny Faunus girl had slept most of the day and now watched the preparations with wide eyes from the edge of a tiny nest in the snow next to Drei. It was just deep enough that she could curl up and hide, camouflaged like a bit of round rock with the snow blown off.

Blake quietly took a seat beside the pair, smiling at Drei's look of utter contentment, his head resting in Robin's lap, twisting ever so slightly to meet the tiny Faunus's lazy ear scratches. The simple domestic scene, while sweet at first glance, struck a dissonant chord in Blake's heart when it suddenly dawned on her that they now had nothing even close to resembling a home to offer them.

She did her best to swallow down the heavy lump that had formed in her throat, her reply coming out thickly regardless, "Yes, I've got her."

"That means you've got Drei," Ruby nudged Weiss with her shoulder.

"Naturally," Weiss acknowledged the task with a toss of her off center ponytail. In the moonlight, the dog's fur was a soft silver that almost matched the heiress's hair.

Ruby had no idea how Weiss would get a dog as big as she was up the side of a wrecked airship, but she had every confidence that it would happen. She stood at the edge of the lower cliff and leaned her hands onto the cold metal hull of the ship, giving Yang an attempt at a grin, "Okay. I'm going up. See you guys in a minute."

She made most of the climb on all fours, the frozen metal cold even through her gloves. The wind had whipped the loose snow from the smooth metal, leaving only the more stubborn patches of ice, but these were easy to see and (mostly) avoid by the light of the moon. The metal creaked and groaned as the wind picked up. Ruby's cloak flared out to the side, but it didn't distract her from her goal. The way the tail was wedged against the cliff left her with a ten foot climb- that was a little dicey in the dark, but at last she rolled herself up onto the solid stone of the upper cliff.

Once Ruby had her end of the line secured around the nearest tree, Blake looked around their immediate area, ears flattening when she realized, "No trees. Great."

"You could use me?"

Blake side-eyed Yang, "You're hardly a tree," but she would likely be more stable than the sled, and there was literally nothing else around to anchor the rope... "But you'll do," she sighed, a smile ghosting across her features as she beckoned Yang to her side. Once she'd secured the rope around the brawler's waist, Blake paused a moment to glance at Robin and Drei.

"Weiss," Blake looked to the heiress, "Do you want me to..." her eyes pointedly tracked to Drei. She had carried the dog before, and though she would much rather carry across their tiny Faunus charge, she was also well aware of just how heavy their four legged companion was.

Weiss finished tying a loop of their extra rope to Drei's collar, "Do I want you to watch while I take this extremely tractable, well mannered-"

Drei let out a deep, booming bark, beyond excited at having something so incredibly leash-like being attached to him. He leaped up and began bounding in joyous circles around Weiss, wrapping the rope around her with each pass.

"-moderately- behaved- hey!" Weiss tried to turn in circles to keep up with Drei but the leash pulled her legs together and, on the next bound, out from under her, "Oof!"

Next to Blake, Robin hid her mouth in her gloves, giggling as Weiss struggled to get untangled in the snow.

"Woah there boy," Yang pulled Drei away from his mission to lavish the fallen heiress with licks, pushing his rump to the ground and giving his ears a quick ruffle before grabbing the ropes around Weiss and lifting her back to her feet. "This one's more of a cuddler, not a kisser," she winked at Drei. The dog tilted his head, but stayed where he was put, tail thumping against the ground.

Eyes rolling, Blake motioned to the dog, "Weiss, really, I can-"

"You guys make it sound like he even needs help," Yang interjected, unwinding Drei's makeshift leash from Weiss and loosely looping it around the rope that led up the fallen aircraft. "Go on boy! Go to Ruby!"

Ears perked, Drei turned, caught sight of the tiny red speck that was Ruby on the other side of the valley, and took off after her. His pace slowed to a cautious trot when he neared some of the narrower, caved-in sections of the ship's hull. He made it to the ship's end in no time at all, but stopped where the ship's tail fins jammed up into the opposing cliff side. Unable to really scale the ten foot climb, he started barking up at Ruby, tail wagging.

"Uh... well, he might need help with that part."

Weiss had barely finished spitting in the snow and scrubbing her mouth on her sleeve. Levering herself back to her feet, she deadpanned, "Thank you for volunteering to take care of that, Yang."

Yang groaned, shoulders slumping. "Yep. Okay. Be right back." Slamming her fists together, Yang cranked her semblance and followed after Drei, taking care to melt and evaporate as many of the iced patches as she could on her way over to their stranded canine companion. It took a combined effort between Ruby and Yang with basically no help at all from Drei, who squirmed the entire way up, but the sisters eventually pushed and pulled the dog to the top of the ridge.

Panting by this point, Yang picked her way back across the airship to Weiss and Blake, and promptly sat on the ground. "Right... yeah... I'm gonna rest for a minute or two..."

The heiress, after watching Yang's dangerous display, crossed her arms while the brawler sat in the snow, "You could have left us your end of the line, you realize."

Yang stared off into space for a full three seconds. "Oh yeah." She shrugged, leaning against the sled, but even in the dimming light of the evening, Blake was able to see an embarrassed flush brightening the brawler's ears, ruining her air of nonchalance.

"I guess it's our turn then," Blake said to Weiss as she took hold of Robin's hand. "Yang, do you think that thing could support the three of us at once?"

"Yeah, it felt all right," the brawler looked to the opposing ridge, struggling to see Ruby, but easily able to see Drei's pinkish-white coat soaking up the rising moonlight as he pranced in circles around his favorite person. "If it can hold me and monsterdog, you guys should be a-ok. Just avoid that big see-through patch of glass - I saw some huge cracks."

Blake nodded, turning to Weiss again, "Want to take point?"

"Let's just hurry up," the heiress took hold of the rope, following the line onto the downed ship.

Ruby waited up above with Drei, Crescent Rose extended. The scythe's blade gleamed while she waited, alert to any sounds from the darkened forest. Hauling Drei up had made quite a bit of noise, after all. Her cape stirred in the stiff breeze.

A twig snapped someplace not too far off. Ruby glanced behind her to check on the others' progress. Her grip tightened on Crescent Rose as she watched for the telltale red-glow of a Grimm's eyes.

On the other side of the ridge, Yang watched Blake follow after Weiss. Or at least, she tried to. They were losing daylight quick, and while Weiss's alabaster hair reflected any speck of starlight falling upon it, Blake and Robin blended almost seamlessly into the shadows. Currently, as far as she could tell, the trio was skirting around the larger windowed section near the ship's front, headed towards the ship's center, the same path Ruby had taken. Yang wished she'd taken that path as well.

Instead, like Drei, she'd taken the most direct path, straight over the air ship's bridge, the reinforced glass holding strong despite the deep cracks and fissures running through it. However, unlike Drei, she'd looked down in a moment of curiosity she wished she could take back, anything to forget the battered and broken bodies of far too many atlas soldiers scattered within.

She'd only glimpsed them for a few seconds, but that had been enough to twist the brawler's stomach into a permanent knot. She'd seen death before - dead animals, dead Grimm, but people... Had they died in the crash? Some of them had injuries that looked far too violent... Had something killed them before the crash? Would there be more like them in the city? Ruby had seemed torn up enough just from a distant view of Beacon. What was waiting for them in the town proper?

Yang shivered, and she was 99.9 percent sure it was not the weather. A small outlier town in the middle of nowhere like James Point could fall without warning. That was par for the course. But Vale? One of the four great Kingdoms of the world? If the CCT had gone down, that would explain their scrolls cutting out. What could have happened to -

A distant flash of light interrupted Yang's meandering thoughts. Not too long after the sharp crack of Crescent Roses's sniper rifle firing off a round cut through the air.

Lightning exploded behind her seconds later, setting her ears ringing. Yang was on her feet in an instant, whirling around to see the bright beady red eyes of more Ursas than she wanted to count bearing down on her. The brawler smirked. _Bearing..._ But this wasn't quite the time for puns.

Ruby's lightning dust powered round had taken out a chain of three Ursas, buying Yang just enough time to whip her head around to check on Blake and Weiss's progress - right in the midst of helping Robin with that ten foot climb up one of the airship's spindly tail pieces, of course.

Trying not to dwell on just how poorly her hearing had recovered if an entire pack of lumbering bear-sized Grimm had been able to sneak up on her, Yang spun back around just in time to uppercut the lead Ursa of the next wave right in its face, sending it head over heels into its snarling companion right behind it. Another crack sounded from across the rift, a regular round this time, and in the next second an Ursa lunging in from her right lost its head. Ruby's work was always a beautiful thing to witness up close.

Smashing her fists together, Yang dropped back into a low fighting stance and flashed a feral grin at the Grimm that were close enough to see. Not a single Ursa was going to set foot on that airship. She would hold this ground. " _Bring it_."

* * *

 **A/N: Wow, we got a batch of reviews last chapter- lots of questions too. Questions that will eventually be answered.**

 **Big thumbs-up for dragoncraftertex who has decided to employ our 'make it worse' motto. It works like a charm!**

 **MewShadowFang: THANK YOU for noticing my Frozen reference!**

 **The Unplanner: "Or, knowing you two, it could be something worse." You definitely know us too well.**

 **Everyone else, you're always awesome. Stay tuned!**

 **\- Fiercesomest**


	46. Down the Ravine

Ruby sighted through her scope, watching Yang square off against the Grimm emerging from the trees. Their coats were blots of coal against the snow.

More brush rustled behind her and she checked again on Weiss and Blake with Robin, picking their way up the slick tail of the airship, "Come on guys..."

Hackles raised and standing at attention beside Ruby, Drei dipped his head and growled at the nearby brush. His bared teeth flashed in the light of another round firing from Crescent Rose.

"Careful," Weiss warned as she climbed past a jagged tear in the metal near the ship's tail. She kept a hand on the rope. Despite the bullets and mounting roars of the Grimm, she stayed focused on getting to the top of the cliff.

Holding fast to the rope just a few feet behind Weiss, Blake felt Robin cling ever tighter to her neck with each shot from Ruby and Yang, which was surprisingly not much of a hindrance as the little girl's legs had also locked in a death-grip around her waist. It made breathing difficult, but it also kept both of her hands free to climb, which Blake definitely needed with the little girl's added weight.

As much as she admired Weiss's ability to focus in the midst of battle, Blake couldn't help but spare a glance back at Yang. She immediately wished she hadn't. The brawler was a lone dancing ball of blazing reds and golds, guarding the smallish area where the airship's nose met the cliffs from a sea of Ursas - majors, minors, it was as if the entire population of forever fall had gathered together in one place. She had never seen this type of Grimm in such numbers.

"Weiss," Blake fought to keep the edge of panic from her voice, trying to channel the rush of adrenaline into her tired limbs as she carefully made her way past the jagged section the heiress had just scaled - they were a little over halfway up now, "please hurry."

"I am," Weiss snapped, more than aware of how close they were now to the cliff. She could hear Drei's deep growl and the razor sound of Crescent Rose. "Hang on to me- we'll jump the rest of the way."

A gust of wind whistled across the rift, causing the massive airship to creak and shift. The tiny Faunus whimpered into Blake's collar.

Nodding, Blake climbed up right beside Weiss, releasing the rope to throw one arm around her waist, and the other around Robin. A circle of flawless bluish white appeared before them, and Blake only had a moment to prepare before they were all jettisoned into the air. Her reflexes didn't fail her this time, and she landed in a roll, cradling the tiny Faunus away from the fall.

When she opened her eyes, another pair of eyes was staring right back at her, blood red, a Beowolf right above her, jaws wide open. Before she could even react, a snarling bark came from behind her, and in another flash of white Drei leaped over her in a wild lunge for the Grimm's neck.

The Beowolf went down hard, snarling and ripping at Drei's thick fur.

The pack was huge. Crescent Rose sheared through another half dozen omegas, but the wolves with their red eyes and bared teeth poured from the treeline.

"Missed you guys," Ruby grinned at Weiss and Blake before circling her scythe through another pair of Beowolves. Breathing already ragged from the ferocity of the attack, she pivoted, bringing her sniper rifle to bear on an alpha standing over the climbing rope. The round ricocheted off its bone mask. Black drool spattered the snow as it turned, its burning eyes sizing Ruby up.

Another alpha joined it, and another, watching their less experienced brethren get cut down. Weiss straightened at Ruby's side when the tide of lesser Grimm ebbed.

The darkness among the bushes teemed with points of red, like hellish fireflies. Ruby's mind raced. They'd never run into a pack with so many alphas. The grunts and roars of the Ursai down the cliff grew louder- probably Yang was on her way up. Ammo, stamina, room to fight- Ruby bit her lip. They were low on everything, but it didn't matter.

"Guys, I have plan," without breaking eye contact with the row of alphas, she edged a foot back towards the cliff.

"It had better be good," Weiss's gaze flickered to Blake and the tiny Faunus in her arms.

"It's at least fifty percent good," Ruby said.

Blake followed Ruby's lead, backing up to the cliff's edge. She held one hand over Robin's Faunus ears, keeping the little girl's head buried in her collar in an effort to keep her safe, even though it left her unable to do much more than shoot at straggling omegas with Gambol. With Ruby and Weiss staring them down, the Alphas didn't seem keen on making a move, so Blake chanced a look back down at Yang.

The brawler had made it roughly halfway across the ship, but with the extra space around her she was slowly being surrounded, her blazing semblance the only thing keeping the snarling Ursae at bay. She'd taken out most of the Minors, but there were at least as many Majors, and more were pressing into the center of the downed ship every second, clambering to snap at the lone huntress in their midst. The ship beneath them groaned with the weight of them all - there was no way it would hold for long - but that wasn't what made Blake's stomach drop.

Off in the distance, hulking just above the trees, she spotted a single file line of white spines slowly plodding in the airship's direction.

Goliaths - an entire herd on their way to join the fray.

"Yang, run!" Blake tried to shout over the din of the frantic battle below, "Get up here, now! _Yang!_ " The brawler didn't even glance upwards - and even if she had, it was dark enough now that Blake doubted she'd be able to see much past her own flames.

"Ruby-" Blake halted upon turning to face Ruby and Weiss and the row of Alphas.

She couldn't quite fathom what she was seeing.

A Beowolf towering nearly twice the height of the trees was slowly strolling towards them. The bony plate of its skull was cracked and weathered almost beyond recognition, its jaws dripping blackness between chipped teeth, and though neither of its shattered eye sockets burned red, its ragged ears stood tall, one trained towards their group, the other focused somewhere to its side.

Ruby tightened her grip on Crescent Rose, remembering that school day back in Forever Fall when they'd fallen into a rats' nest- the Grimm rats' nest. The parallels came quickly- the hordes of white fangs and red eyes. The King Rat loomed up in her mind's eye, bigger than the monstrous Alpha alpha beowolf. Even with Blake shouting and making a ruckus, the wolves hadn't broken ranks- they eased out from the sparse treeline, forming a snarling half-circle around the three on the cliff's edge.

Ruby's cloak whipped in the icy wind as she held her ground before this new, giant-sized beowolf. Her original plan to drop the airship and as many ursai with it as possible and run like mad wasn't looking like it was going to work out so well anymore. Her mind raced. She needed a distraction. Something to keep a hundred beowolves busy for ten seconds so she and Yang could-

A whistling sound came over the wind, and the pack's eyes all flickered left just in time for a shell the size of a can of baked beans to explode in pink against the side of their leader's head.

The beowolves erupted in fury, surging towards a familiar battle cry, "Yeeeeeehaa!"

Ruby's heart leapt in her chest.

"Help them," she said to Weiss and Blake as she dove over the cliff to get Yang.

"But-" Blake barely got a word out before Ruby was nothing more than a trail of rose petals. Weiss had already sped directly into the fray of battle, towards the sound of explosions and laughter, glyphs flickering almost too quick for Blake to catch. Still hanging around the outskirts of the frantic melee, Blake held back, setting Robin on the ground and moving so she blocked the tiny Faunus from view as best she could.

A wailing howl snapped Blake's attention to an Alpha that had strayed from the main fray and set its sights on them. She brandished both her swords as it charged, but just as she was about to spring out to meet it, she caught something darting towards them in her peripheral vision - another Alpha, making a beeline for them along the cliff's edge, closer even than the one that had howled.

No sooner had she noticed the new threat, a familiar figure dropped seemingly out of the sky in front of it - Lie Ren, looking a bit more tattered than usual, but wearing the same cool expression he always did in battle. He ducked under a lightning fast swipe of the Alpha's claws, grabbing the beast's arm and pivoting, using its momentum to throw it right off the cliffside.

Blake only had a moment to admire his technique before the Alpha that had howled was upon her. Whirling around, Blake grabbed Robin and darted to the side towards Ren, using a round of dust to leave behind a molten-red shadow clone that exploded the second the Alpha's teeth closed around it, splitting the Grimm's head apart in a shower of dark sludge and bone-white fragments of skull.

In the momentary reprieve that followed, Blake set Robin back down and blinked at Ren, who blinked back, raising a brow at the tiny shivering Faunus clinging to Blake's leg. Chambering rounds in both halves of Storm Flower, Ren moved to stand beside the pair of Faunus and called up a soft pink spherical barrier around them all, firing off a few rounds through it to take down a stray Beowolf that had escaped Blake and Weiss's earlier slaughter. He motioned for Blake to join the battle.

Flashing Ren a look of pure gratitude, Blake knelt down and gathered the tiny Faunus girl in her arms, pressing a kiss between her fox ears. "Listen to me, Robin. This is Ren. He's going to keep you safe. Stay with him until I get back." After one more kiss, this time to her forehead, Blake all but jumped to her feet and sprinted towards the tree line, her sights set on the ancient Beowolf towering over the chaotic battle roiling at his feet.

At the edge of the forest, Weiss whipped Myrtenaster crosswise, freezing a batch of Beowolves that lunged at her. She gave ground fast as another wave shattered the first, sending bits of frozen Grimm scattering across the icy rock.

A shockwave sprinkled with pink lightning swept through the Beowolves' ranks, and the heiress had a fleeting sense of deja vu- like she'd seen this... in a dream? She braced and an alpha's claws rang off of Myrtenaster's steel. Her gaze hardened, she didn't have time to think about dreams now.

Ruby's boots hit the icy metal of the airship- she had a second to place Yang as she skidded down, not that she was hard to spot. Her sister was partway up the ship, fighting a half dozen raging ursai. Ember Celica flared and one of the beast's claws scrabbled helplessly as it plunged over the edge of the ship into the darkness below.

"Yang!" Ruby shouted, driving Crescent Rose into the sheet metal to stop herself.

Ruby was close enough that her voice cut through the ringing in Yang's ears and the brawler whipped her head around, relief washing the exhaustion from her blood-red eyes. "Hey, sis!" She just barely blocked a backhanded swipe from the Ursa Major she was tangling with, the force of the blow sending her skidding back to Ruby's side. Standing back to back with her sister, Yang spared a moment to look around at the impossible number of Grimm surrounding them. The airship groaned, bulletproof glass cracking beneath their feet. "So, is it time for one of your awesome plans yet?"

"Yep!" Ruby chirped, gauging how much more the crumpling ship could take. As soon as the Goliaths got to it, the whole thing was toast, "Can you pass me your safety line and knock the ship loose when I give the signal?"

"You bet I can! ...Uh-" Yang fumbled with the extremely secure knot Blake had tied around her waist for all of two seconds before having to leave it to intercept an incoming Ursa's snapping jaws with her fist. She flashed a grin at the now-toothless Grimm stumbling back into one of its companions, sending them both scrabbling over the ship's edge. The grin faded when three more took their place. "Yeah okay," gritting her teeth, the brawler brute forced the knot securing her to the rope, snapping it at its weakest point. "All yours," she shouted over a trio of roars headed their way, tossing the frayed end of the rope over Ruby's shoulder and rushing back into the fray.

Up on the cliffs, at the other end of the rope, Blake quickly worked loose Ruby's knot around the tree, thankful for the distraction afforded by Weiss's relentless onslaught and bright flashes of pink that had to be Nora keeping the pack of Beowolves and Alphas occupied. Her brows furrowed, Faunus ears twisting this way and that, finding two distinct sets of sounds missing from battle.

She'd seen Ren. She could hear Weiss and Nora. But Jaune's awkward shouts of attack and Pyrrha's confident battle cries were nowhere to be found.

Her concern was overshadowed when she felt the earth beneath her feet and the trees overhead begin to shake harder and harder, heralding the approach of that ancient... _thing_ heading towards the cliff's edge. Ruby had asked her to help, so if she could neutralize the largest threat...

Leaping up into the trees before a nearby Alpha caught sight of her, Blake made her way through the treetops towards the towering wolf, gunning for a leg. Yang was on the other end of this rope. Maybe if she could secure a leg, they could somehow trip it... some kind of modified bumblebee maneuver...

"HEY! Come this way!"

The shout came from the edge of the cliff, punctuated by rounds from Crescent Rose- standard rounds- enough to annoy the oversized Grimm.

Ruby jumped and waved her arms after the shots before landing and breathing, "Oh, wait, no eyes," she shouted again, "HEY, you big- dumb—uh… face! Come over here!"

She saw Blake getting the rope and flashed her a grin and pointed to her own leg, quickly miming tying a rope to it before firing a couple more rounds at the lesser Beowolves she'd attracted with her yelling. When Blake glanced at the towering Beowolf and nodded in understanding, she upgraded her estimate of her plan from fifty percent good to at _least_ seventy five.

A good dozen yards away, a ring of wolves howled and snapped at Ren's force field. The tiny Faunus Blake had left in his charge took cover between his legs, clinging to his one pantleg with her ears pinned flat as she snarled tiny, terrified snarls at the surrounding Grimm.

The towering wolf's ears perked towards Ruby's voice. It changed course just slightly, cracked, weathered lips peeling back in a snarling grimace as it threw its head back and howled, a low, mournful sound that seemed as though it was comprised of a thousand different voices, dropping and dropping in pitch until the ground shook from the sheer volume of it.

Every Alpha and omega Beowolf in the area stopped, ears perking, thousands upon thousands of blood red eyes turning and fixing on Ruby all in concert.

Ruby gripped Crescent Rose a lot harder. Maybe she'd leave the plan's 'good idea' rating at fifty percent.

In the meantime, she hoped the pause was giving Blake a chance to get that rope around the big guy.

They all attacked at once.

From her vantage point in the trees, Blake's heart leapt into her throat as she watched a solid wall of darkness rush her team leader, wave after wave of Beowolves of all sizes stampeding through and out of the forest to get at their designated target. She didn't get much chance to fret, her attention snapping to a paw the size of an Ursa Major that crashed through the leaves and branches, pushing down and crushing a tree and many smaller Beowolves beneath it mere feet away from Blake's own perch. She could hear the ancient Beowolf's other leg sweeping through the forest, mid-stride.

Stomping down her desire to sprint to Ruby's aid, Blake instead followed her leader's orders and sprang towards the leg before her, darting around the area just above the paw multiple times and quickly working the rope into one of the sturdiest knots she knew. The paw was just starting to lift again when she finished, and Blake jumped back up into the treetops, firing off two rounds in an attempt to signal her success.

Ruby sniped the front runners with a few rounds from Crescent Rose. In the face of the roaring wave of Grimm, she was all focus, all skill. In seconds, they were close enough for her to count their teeth in the moonlight. Ruby sprang backwards, down to the airship yelling to her sister, "Get ready!"

The end of the safety line was cinched to the sturdy strut of the ship's exposed landing gear.

"Got it!" Yang called back, ducking and swiping an arm beneath the jaws of an Ursa that decided to snap at her for glancing away and releasing her spent shell casings, which sent the beast slipping and sprawling into the Ursa beside it when it stepped on them mid-lunge. In the few seconds it took for them to be replaced by another group of three, she had already reloaded with her final strip of high-impact incendiary rounds.

Just as she turned to call out again, the ship shuddered violently, sending a few Ursa scrabbling for purchase against the smooth metal. Yang's breath caught in her throat at an ear-splitting screech of metal. The first Goliath had made it to the other end of the ship, its massive tusks flashing in the moonlight as it reared back and stomped down on the ship's bridge over and over.

Yang couldn't tell if it was just frustrated that it knew the ship wouldn't hold its weight, or if it was actually _trying_ to dislodge it and send them to the bottom of the chasm with it. The brawler immediately took two steps back and chambered a round, calling over the sharp crack of the ship's glass bridge shattering, "Okay! Okay yeah I am so ready right now!"

The Beowolves poured over the cliff, swarming down the length of the ship. Ruby braced to jump, Crescent Rose swung back and down to assist, "Now! Do it now!"

Yang sprang into action, literally, jumping from her crouched position up onto a charging Ursa's head and leaping from it high into the air. Her new vantage point let her see the battlefield in its entirety, stunning her for a moment with the sheer number of Grimm swarming below. A sea of darkness being parted by a single beacon of swirling red. Crescent Rose circling through a fresh wave of Beowolves. The seemingly endless trail of Goliaths. The impossibly sized wolf standing just at the edge of the cliffs, grinning down at its younger packmates. She didn't see much else as she plummeted back to the ship right between two Ursas, firing off her round by slamming her fist full force into the metal hull with a shockwave of flame.

The sheet metal crumpled like tin foil. Its structural integrity demolished, the overloaded airship continued to buckle, screeching against the cliff walls as it began to slip towards the yawning abyss. The safety line began to draw tight.

Ruby abandoned her attacks, leaping to Yang's side. Crescent Rose clashed off the claws of one of the off-balance Ursas, sending it toppling into its fellows as the ship picked up speed. She barely had to glance at her sister to know she was ready to go.

"Race you!" Ruby shouted and shot back up the slant of the airship, bounding off the bone spikes of the Beowolves scrambling to get back up the cliff.

The only problem would be- Ruby looked up at the massive wolf, its huge form blotting out the stars.

"You're on!" Yang laughed, knowing full well she would never be able to keep up as she shot forward after her sister.

Keeping her footing on the crumpling ship was no simple feat, but with her explosive rounds completely spent, Yang was for all intents and purposes grounded, thanking the stars above for her boots' excellent traction as she dodged and weaved through the tumbling bodies of Beowolves and Ursas who had a far worse time scrabbling for purchase against the shifting terrain.

That is, until her foot was jerked out from underneath her inches from the ship's end.

One of the towering Beowolf's gnarled ears flicked towards a low hiss of expletives streaming from the small burning huntress that had just been ensnared by a young packmate. Its nose twitched at the windswept scent of wild roses dancing past its feet, catching the stationary scent of muted lotus flowers slightly farther away. Its fur prickled at opposing points of cold and static advancing towards its back, and somewhere close by, its other ear twisted to catch the quickened breaths of a small one that somehow managed to remain otherwise utterly silent as it too closed in.

The wolf opened its jaws in an enormous yawn. Their numbers mattered not. They would all be consumed in time.

Just as the ancient creature began to turn to face its foolish assailants, something constricted around its ankle, whipcord tight, dragging its foot right over the cliff's edge before snapping. With zero time to react or catch its balance, the beast snarled as it pitched forward and twisted, one arm lashing out to catch the lip of the chasm's edge which held for all of a fraction of a second before it crumbled beneath its massive weight, sending it sprawling into darkness...

Darkness that lit up thirty seconds later in a colorful explosion as everything struck bottom. The ship's red and blue dust engines ruptured from the impact of centuries-old bony spires slamming into their protective casing and puncturing straight through.

Ruby skidded to a halt halfway to the treeline, whirling to face the cliff. She stumbled to her hands and knees as a secondary blast rocked the ground.

"Ruby!" Weiss met her team leader as the light from the blast died down. Bits of glass and metal sprinkled down from overhead. Still panting, she caught her partner's cloak, checking her over for injuries. Sparks of burning Dust glittered as they rose into the night.

Framed in that strange light stood a familiar girl, her massive hammer in hand as she leaned over the edge of the cliff. "Was that all of them? Aw."

Ruby barely heard either of them. Her pulse roared in her ears, "Where's Yang?"

Blake flew by them at top speed stopping only once she reached the cliff's edge. Dropping to her hands and knees, she called over the side, "Yang!"

Ren caught up with Ruby and the others moments later, both hands on his knees, huffing from the exertion of having kept a full barrier up for so long and for having a tiny Faunus clinging to his back. "She was-" his sentence caught on a gasp of air, tumbling out with his next exhale, "She was still on the ship."

* * *

 **A/N: Yang, that was definitely not part of the PLAN**

 **Yikes. Well, sorry this chapter was a little late! (hospital stuff, bleh) Thanks for being awesomely patient and just all around fabulous readers :3**

 **HUGS,  
D**


	47. Cliff Hanger

_"She was still on the ship."_

Ruby's attention snapped from Ren to the edge of the cliff and in a split second she was next to Blake, lying flat on the ground to see over the edge. The bottom of the chasm smoldered like a heap of embers- the red-orange light wasn't sufficient to light the rock walls. Hadn't she—she'd had another strip of incendiaries, right? High impact something? If she hadn't, Ruby wouldn't have-

But this was Yang. She had to be alright. Ruby's hand stayed locked around Crescent Rose. She had to.

"Yang!" She yelled, searching the shadows on the cliff face for any sign of her sister. Nora added her voice to the chorus of shouts.

Weiss stood back, torn between joining her teammates at the cliffside and watching the treeline for signs of stray Grimm. Ren seemed unharmed, and the Faunus child was with him. Where was Drei? Her partner's yells drew her attention back to the cliff again. Where was Yang?

As if to answer Weiss, a shaky voice drifted up from the chasm wall. "Hey uh, guys? Are you up there?"

"Yang!" Blake's voice cracked with relief. She gripped one of Ruby's arms, "Are you okay!? Where-"

"Guys?"

Blake's ears flattened, her eyes flicking to Ruby and back. "Yang?" She tried to peer over the edge, but was forced to shuffle back when a section of dirt and rock gave way beneath one of her hands.

"I dunno if you can hear me but-" a small yelp of surprise followed by a few coughs cut Yang's sentence short, but only for a moment, "Ow, ouch, stupid rocks - okay so, that explosion was really loud and I think my ears are bleeding? But dang did it look awesome."

Their rope was officially gone. Ruby felt a rush of relief and dread and guilt all at once-Yang was fine! Yang was stuck on the cliffside. Yang was hurt and it was her fault. She jumped into action.

"We'll need Gambol Shroud. Guys," Ruby called the others as she assessed the distance from the cliff's edge to the nearest tree. It might be too far. She caught Blake's sleeve, "We'll anchor the line. Are you okay going down after her?"

Blake nodded at once, already unsheathing her blade and reverting it to pistol form. She quickly secured the end of the ribbon to Magnhild's shaft, winding the end that connected to her weapon around her arm and gripping the pistol backwards so that she could use its short jutting blade to slow her descent or help them climb back up if need be.

"I bet you guys are still wrecking Grimm up there huh. Lucky."

One of Blake's ears swiveled to listen to Yang's nervous rambling as she waited for Ren and Ruby and even Robin to assist in bracing Nora. Weiss seemed keen on keeping a lookout for now, but Blake wondered if the heiress would need to jump in once they had Yang's weight on the line as well...

"You know, this little ledge is bigger than I thought!"

Blake spun around at the distant sound of rocks crumbling, her miniature heart attack averted when rather than hearing a gasp of terror, she heard only a nonchalant, "Oh, uh, well now it's smaller. Mmm. A lot smaller."

A loose smattering of swears murmured low enough that Blake only barely caught them brought an odd warmth to her chest, but her expression was all business as she tested the strength of her collective anchor. The instant Ruby gave her the go-ahead, Blake slipped over the cliff's edge.

"I can't believe we found you!" Nora crowed, her grip rock steady on her massive war hammer. The ribbon attached to it thrummed with tension, "Not that the ginormous Beowolf didn't lead us straight here, but still. Where have you _been?_ Everyone thought you were dead but _I_ said you weren't, and Ren did too, and we tried to tell you to come back but you took _so long_."

Ruby, her arms locked around Nora's waist, spoke with a face-full of the other girl's puffy winter jacket, "Uh-maybe we can talk about it- later?"

Robin wasn't helping so much as refusing to get out from under Ruby's legs. Weiss took the liberty of treading carefully to the edge of the cliff to call down to Blake in the dying light of the fire below, "Do you need more line?"

Blake had just spotted her target, standing wedged inside the bottom of what looked like an enormous claw mark scored into the rock wall's face. "Yes," she called up to Weiss, her tone warmed by the rush of relief washing over her. After a brief mental calculation she added, "All of it."

A minute later, Nora hung over the edge of the cliff upside down, hands gripping Magnhild on either side of the ribbon tied to his handle. She chattered away like dangling off the edge of a cliff supporting one, soon to be two girls who were both bigger than her was nothing. "This would make a great circus act. Ren, remember that time I almost got us a job at that circus?"

Ren gently hummed an affirmative.

All the blood was rushing to Ruby's head, but she'd used her belt to practically tie her wrists to Nora's ankles so there was no chance of her slipping. She felt like she might be a few inches taller by the end of the ordeal, however, strung between Ren and Nora. The dark-haired boy held her legs, knees bent to the top of the cliff, anchored by one of Weiss's black glyphs.

The heiress stood to the side, one hand maintaining the glyph, the other a fist twisted in the back of Robin's coat and shirt collar to keep her out of the way. The tiny Faunus whimpered and tried to slip out of her coat, but Weiss just twisted harder, refusing to break focus.

"Blake, have you got her yet?" Ruby gritted out, her back scraping the wall of the cliff as Nora shifted in some imitation of the flying trapeze.

"I'm nearly..." Blake kept shimmying sideways as best she could, until finally she reached her free hand into the lip of the rocky alcove that held her partner.

"Woah _jeeze,_ " Yang jerked away from the mysterious fingers, then leaned her head out as far as she could without losing balance, catching Blake's eye. "Blake!"

Blake bit back a grimace at the singe marks scorching Yang's hair and face, the trails of red running down from her ears and nose - the brawler's aura was completely spent, and she looked like she was seconds from weeping with relief. Rolling her eyes, Blake smiled and pulled herself a bit closer. It took a good deal of careful maneuvering, but after a few seconds Yang had wrapped herself around Blake as tightly as she dared.

"Okay!" Blake called to the others above, "I have her!"

"She got her!" Ruby and Nora echoed up to the others. Ruby squeaked and tensed as one of Weiss's pale blue 'pull' glyphs hauled her up. Once Nora had her feet on the ground, she and Ruby and Ren took over, heaving the line back towards the trees while Weiss bent at the waist to catch her breath.

Blake tried to help, walking up the cliff as best she could with roughly two-hundred pounds of brawler wrapped around her, legs shaking with the effort of each step. Thankfully, by the time the line was starting to cut off circulation to her arm, they made it to the top, clambering over the cliff's crumbly edge and collapsing in a heap on solid ground, where Yang promptly rolled flat onto her back and blinked blearily up at the sky. "For the record, explosions are way less cool up close."

"You're just noticing this... how?" Weiss picked herself up enough to look skeptical, "You realize you practically have shotguns strapped to your wrists."

The tiny Faunus emitted an increasingly high pitched series of whines, straining against her coat collar until the heiress finally threw up her hands, releasing her. She shot to Blake's lap, clinging fiercely and hiding her face against her ribcage.

Blake checked her over for injuries, running fingers through her hair, over her ears, her arms, pulling back just enough to look at her face. Nothing worse than a few streaks of tears. Relieved beyond measure, Blake clutched the little girl to her chest and looked to Ren. "I can't thank you enough."

He inclined his head.

Yang followed Blake's line of sight, sitting up on her elbows in surprise (and wincing as she did), "Nora! Ren! Fancy meeting you two here."

Nora laughed and rolled her eyes, plopping down at Yang's side, "Wow, like you're surprised."

Ruby, watching perplexed, scratched her head, "Um, but we are surprised. What..." the question seemed inadequate, too simple to communicate the gravity of her asking given the degree of destruction lying beyond the forest. Ruby had to swallow and try again to get the words out. "What happened?"

"Wait, what?" Nora stopped poking Yang in the shoulder. "Didn't you get any of our messages?"

At that moment, a bone-rending shriek filled the air. Something huge blotted out the stars. Ruby clutched Crescent Rose, still holstered behind her back. For a moment, no one breathed, and then the monstrous dark thing had passed overhead, a silent shadow sweeping on towards Vale.

"... maybe we should go back to camp," Nora glanced at her partner, "Ren?"

Ren nodded, but he otherwise kept still, his sight fixed on a point just inside the treeline. He squinted, trying to make sense of the slow lumbering thing making its way towards them. His weapons were in hand the second it shambled into a patch of moonlight.

A Beowolf, mostly, though one of its front legs was decidedly smaller and canine in appearance - a splash of white that led up to a muzzle that was already almost completely covered by bone, open wide in a silent howl, dripping blackness. One deep brown eye remained intact underneath a flattened white ear, and it was fixed on Ruby as it tried its hardest to stumble over to her, seemingly unsure whether it needed to stand on two legs or four.

Ruby stared, forgetting to even breathe. There was no way. But that white fur...

Weiss, bristling and ready to fight off one last Grimm, stepped forward, sword in hand. The monster's bone mask shone hideously in Myrtenaster's icy blue light.

"Wait," Ruby choked, unable to tear her gaze away from the black ooze splattering the snow, "Wait, is that... Drei?"

The beast's head snapped around, both ears straining towards the sound of the name, but the sudden movement overbalanced it and it stumbled, landing muzzle-first in the dirt and rolling onto its back.

One of Blake's ears twitched towards the light clicks of Ren chambering two rounds, both pistols trained on the writhing… thing. The tiny Faunus in her arms had started shaking again, so she pressed her close, covering her ears to help block the beast's guttural growling.

Yang finally turned to look as well, uttering a low curse of surprise. Drei. It had to be Drei. His remaining brown eye flickered red, wide with rage. She had never considered the possibility of a Grimm feeling pain until she had become one herself, and she winced with bleak empathy, unable to hear his agonized whine, but unable to look away, completely at a loss for what to do or how to help as he thrashed and tore at himself, biting his own leg, practically trying to rip the encroaching darkness from what remained of the fluffy dog beneath.

Nora had her hammer in her hands, taking her cue from Ren and waiting. She glanced at Ruby in complete bafflement, "You want us to wait because it's dry?"

"No, that's not-" Ruby's throat closed. She started to get up to- to at least try to help. Last time he had been mostly dog, though, and she'd been rested and well fed. Now... Yang was hurt. Everyone was hurting. Her chest ached and her knees threatened to give out under her.

Weiss had paled, paper white. She took one glance at Ruby and steeled her gaze. Myrtenaster took on a more intense glow, and she thrust the sword into the frozen ground. Ice bristled across the short distance between her and the dog, ending as it locked the miserable creature in its grasp from its torso to as near its neck as she could get it.

"If you're going to try, do it before he breaks free," the heiress said, hiding the shake in her voice.

Yang struggled to stand when her sister began to approach the snarling frozen monstrosity. "Ruby what-" she made it to her knees before she had to stop and wait for her head to stop spinning, "what are you doing?"

Ren motioned for Nora to stay put, then moved to follow close behind Ruby. He stowed one of his guns now that the threat was immobilized, but kept the other in hand, finger resting securely on the trigger.

Ruby knelt close to the near-Grimm, just out of reach of his teeth. The cold felt like needles in her lungs.

"Hey, friend," she greeted him thickly, looking for a good place to lay her hands on him without getting torn up. The moon reflected off the ice, but seemed to be absorbed by Grimm-Drei's fur.

Ren stood directly behind her, watching in fascination as the Grimm seemed to calm down at the sound of Ruby's voice. Though, when he leaned in for a better look and caught its gaze, it went right back to snarling and struggling, howling in a wild rage that didn't cease until he backed off a few steps. More than a little perturbed at the recognition shining in the creature's eyes as it stared up at Ruby, Ren held his position, confident he would still be quick enough to call up a barrier from his current distance if need be.

Nora edged forward , standing at Ren's elbow, fascinated. Weiss took measured breaths, more than aware that if something went wrong it was her fault for not putting the miserable creature down. Really, just because it was a dog-their dog-and Ruby had told her how she'd fixed him before didn't mean she should have to do it again.

Ruby waited till Grimm-Drei quieted down.

"Hey, lemme fix you up, okay? Good boy?" Cautiously she reached, fingertips brushing the stiff black fur at his neck as she felt for his collar.

The half-grimm bristled, growling low, but the sound was punctuated with pitiful hiccuped whimpers. Even as he bared his teeth on one side, he nuzzled the still-dog half of his face into Ruby's arm.

Ruby's hands found and closed over the too tight collar.

 _Here goes..._ she took a deep breath, trying to focus her aura into Drei. Sweat broke out on her brow as the crimson glow surrounded her.

His growling weakened in the face of Ruby's aura, ears and eyelids drooping as though he'd been hit with a tranquilizer. The parts of his body that hadn't been frozen went slack as the slow wave of crimson washed over his muzzle, flowed up over his brow, and pooled around where his neck met Weiss's ice, sluggishly sinking straight down into his inky black fur. Slowly, the remaining canine half of his head began to glow as well, a soft grayed-out white that reached out to mingle with Ruby's red.

His paw twitched.

The strip of white fur that led from his head to his one remaining dog paw began to darken, his aura slowly flaking away like chaff in an invisible wind. The line of disintegration took a sudden turn, running into one of the small rivers of Ruby's crimson and scattering it to pieces.

Ruby couldn't let go, couldn't catch her breath. Her aura burned bright, but it still flecked away as the darkness crept forward.

 _Come on. Come on..._ Sweat stung in her eyes, or maybe not sweat... something-her eyes burned.

Weiss saw Ruby's aura scattering and immediately shifted her grip on Myrtenaster. Focusing on the ice trapping the Grimm, she summoned another layer, thickening the trap. The air filled with the crackle of ice under pressure. Her blue gaze flickered back to her partner, watching for the instant Ruby needed help.

Nora bounced anxiously at Ren's side, the material of her gloves creaking against Magnhild's metal grip.

Ren had lifted one of his hands, ready to raise a barrier at a moment's notice, but as he waited... and waited... the moment never seemed to come. His brow arched in curiosity over the way Ruby's aura continued to sink into the creature's fur, just barely breaking even against the disintegration attempting to eat it away.

For a wild moment, it actually seemed to be working.

Then Drei's remaining eye snapped open, wide with silent terror as he stared up at Ruby.

"Ruby." Yang was able to get to her feet this time, watching in horror as the bone mask rapidly began to spread across the rest of Drei's face. "Ruby _let go!_ "

The small remaining patch of his grayish-white aura shattered all at once. A blinding flash of light followed, and with an earsplitting roar, Drei wrenched himself free of the ice binding him and lunged for Ren and Nora, only to be met with a solid barrier of pink. For a split second the Grimm pressed his face against the barrier, bright silver eyes locked on Ruby.

The instant Nora shifted a muscle, he vanished in a blur, leaving black petals in his wake.

* * *

A/N: Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek

That is all. Stay tuned! (Also props to our reviewer for the chapter name, I might have snorted out loud at work)

HUGS,  
D


	48. Familiar Faces

**A/N: Happy Sunday! Yikes, sorry this one was a bit late. Fiercesomest is almost never to blame for late chapters I've realized... Nope, this time it's a wild and crazy wonky sleep schedule wrecking me in the faceeee. Who else here has random spats of insomnia?**

 **Anyway, here's to hoping the chapter makes up for it!**

 **HUGS,**  
 **D**

* * *

Ruby came awake slowly, or she thought she did.

Am I dead? She blinked and her hazy vision started to clear. She was lying in the grass under a tall tree with clear, shifting leaves. They looked like water, and they caught the sunlight like liquid crystals. A warm breeze stirred the treetop. Roses climbed a number of branching black iron lamp posts that seemed to be growing out of the earth like saplings.

"Ruby," the sound of the voice was muddy, like it was underwater.

Ruby tried to answer but she was exhausted. She could barely keep her eyes open. A hand stroked back her bangs and she managed to turn her head a little. The blurred figure beside her was clad in white and red. Ruby's question came out groggy and thick, "Mom?"

A sharp smack to the head snapped her the rest of the way awake.

The air was cold, and the sky was made of canvas. A tent? Ruby groaned. One of her hands was caught but she clutched her head with the free one, hazarding as she blinked away sleep, "Weiss?"

"You absolute dolt," the heiress scolded from beside her on the ground. She released Ruby's other hand, "What were you thinking, holding on for that long? Do you have any idea how dangerous that was?"

Ruby looked up from her sleeping bag in the semi-light of the tent. There were clothes and gear stacked all over the place. Crescent Rose lay next to her in compact form. Weiss was scowling going on in that way she did when she didn't get enough sleep. Still foggy with sleep, Ruby tried to keep up with her partner's exasperated ranting for another minute or so before the tent flap opened, filling the crowded space with cold winter light.

A familiar face peered into the tent, bright amber eyes smiling to see Ruby up and aware. Blake turned to speak to someone behind her, "She's awake." Blake stepped inside, making way for Ren, who came in bearing a bowl of bread and some kind of leafy greens, which he handed to Weiss. Another familiar face followed hot on his heels.

Pyrrha stepped quietly into the room.

She looked as warm and welcoming as always, but her demeanor was tinged with a new element of weariness. Her hair was pulled back as usual, but the gold circlet that typically adorned her head was missing, replaced with a much simpler band of some silvery metal with a single small horn of iron in its center. Likewise, her usual gold armor had been replaced with what looked like scrap metal cobbled together to try and resemble her former combat attire.

Emerald eyes swept over Ruby, tightening with unfamiliar lines of worry when their gazes met, but as Pyrrha knelt beside Ruby's bed, her greeting was still the same. "Hello again."

"Pyrrha?" Ruby was so relieved that all of a sudden there were tears. She rubbed her eyes on her frayed black sleeve. "You guys are okay?"

Weiss had gone silent. White as a sheet, she exchanged a glance with Ren and brushed her hair back over her shoulder. The red fabric at her collar showed as she adjusted her cuffs, "Ruby? Let me see your hand again."

"Huh?" Ruby complied, still a little hazy about what was happening as Weiss took her hand and... started aura healing? The glow that surrounded her was soft and white, almost invisible against the sun-bright walls of the tent they were in. Ruby's aura responded, tingling from her arm to her chest and out to the rest of her. She felt totally fine. Had Weiss had just decided she wanted to practice randomly? That didn't make sense. She tried to sit up and ask, "Why are you-?"

The look Weiss gave her was scathing, but behind that it was terrified.

The scythe-wielder lay propped on one elbow as Weiss returned her attention to her work and refused to look back at her. Something was wrong. Something other than what had happened to Vale and to everyone at Beacon. She looked up at Pyrrha and Ren, dread creeping into her chest even though she didn't know why.

Ruby's silver eyes were red.

Pyrrha's eyes were beginning to redden in a different way, tears slipping down her cheeks even as she smiled. "You're okay," she breathed, as if saying it aloud would make it a reality. Arms that had held her rifle's aim rock steady in the face of endless waves of Grimm trembled and shook as Pyrrha reached out, gathering Ruby into a tight hug, "You... you woke up-" was all she was able to get out before she began to cry in earnest.

Eyes flashing with sympathy, Ren came to kneel beside them, placing a gentle hand to Pyrrha's back and leaning close, speaking softly, "This means there's still hope."

"Mmmg," Ruby squirmed, half smothered in the hug.

"Great, okay, act like she's fine," Weiss had given up trying to maintain her aura healing with Pyrrha grabbing Ruby and crying. Her glance darted between her partner and Pyrrha, "You saw her eyes, though. That's not fine."

The only other time she'd seen Ruby's eyes like that, or close to that, had been after the Grimm Rat King, in that nightmare world. The fencer's throat went dry, thinking about it, about the feral red in Ruby's eyes as her hands tightened around her throat.

Ren shook his head. "Probably not. Though to be honest," his eyes dipped a fraction, "...I didn't expect her to wake at all."

Blake shifted uncomfortably, glad Yang wasn't present to hear this. "Why not?"

Ren held his silence, quietly looking to Pyrrha, whose tears were beginning to slow.

Gently disentangling herself from Ruby with a barely whispered, I'm sorry, Pyrrha forced the remainder of her swell of emotions down, wiping gingerly at her eyes. "Because," she started, hiccuping down another sob, "because Jaune is still asleep."

Ruby had flopped back on the pile of folded blankets, panting from lack of oxygen. She struggled back up at that, though, "Wait, my eyes? And Jaune's... asleep?"

Weiss's mouth was a thin line.

Ruby shifted to look past Weiss over to Blake, "What about Beacon?" being in a tent in the middle of winter finally registered, and her brow furrowed, "Where are we?"

The entire tent went quiet - aside from Pyrrha's slowly subsiding sniffles. Ren looked as though he wanted to say something, but looking to Pyrrha granted him little guidance, as she had her eyes glued firmly to the ground.

In the end it was Blake who broke the silence, Faunus ears flattened. "We... are at Beacon."

Ruby shrank down some, suddenly wanting to just go back to sleep for a while. She swallowed, her voice small, "Oh."

Ruby shielded her eyes from the sun as she exited the tent, Weiss and Blake at her side to steady her. The tent- or tents, actually. There was more than one- stood in the middle of a wide patch of gouged out, rubble strewn ground, surrounded by an enormous tilt of circular wall.

"It's the coliseum," Weiss's tone was as cold and hard as the look in her ice blue eyes. They were _inside_ Amity Coliseum, home of the Vytal Festival tournament, a symbol of harmony between all the people of Remnant. Fragments of the four kingdom's colors fluttered in the bleak winter wind near the top of the circular wall. Ruby followed her partner's gaze, taking in the ring of stadium seating surrounding them. Chairs were missing from the stands, like teeth, or like corn kernels pried off the cob, leaving blank empty spaces. The glass of the announcer's box had shattered. The entire lower half of the structure was missing, and what remained was pitched at a crazy angle- the west half of it had crumpled into the ground on impact.

Twisted sheets of metal and shards of glass littered the ground beyond the small clump of tents, mingling with bits of equipment from one of Beacon's training fields, and... was that a blackboard? It was broken in half, but the chalk drawings were intact- Grimm biology. One of Professor Port's Deathstalker diagrams. Ruby also recognized pieces of one of the upperclassman projects nearby- a collapsible catapult. There were teeth marks on the main arm. Big ones. There weren't many tents here. Not enough for all the students at Beacon, let alone all the visitors from Haven and the other schools. She felt hollow, like everything had been drained out of her while she'd been asleep. After a second, she managed to squeak out, "Where's Yang? And where are..." she gestured helplessly at the sun-bleached canvas, as Pyrrha and Ren followed them out of the tent, "...where is everyone?"

"Yang's over there," Blake pointed to one of the largest tents, nearly a foot taller than the others and marked with a red cross haphazardly splashed across one edge in what she dearly hoped was not blood. "She collapsed halfway back to camp and has been... in and out," she added, tapping her temple to signify her partner's bouncing back and forth between being out cold and waking just long enough to ask about Ruby.

"Extreme semblance overuse," Ren commented with a small shake of his head, to which Blake nodded. He sobered up upon following Ruby's silver gaze around the empty area, continuing where Blake had left off, "Everyone else has either evacuated or... otherwise." His eyes dropped to the ground, but just as he was about to clarify, a booming CLANG resounded through the enclosed arena, stopping everyone in their tracks.

Ren didn't even look up, and rather than immediately pulling guard, Pyrrha smiled, her eyes lighting up as her head whipped around towards the source of the sound.

"They're back! Pardon me," Pyrrha excused herself from the group before jogging off towards one of the fallen arena's large doorways.

"There is only a small group of us left," Ren continued, finally dragging his eyes up from the ground to warily meet Ruby's, looking for all the world as though he'd rather fight a Goliath single-handed than hold up both of his hands and begin counting, "All of us in JNPR, Yatsuhashi and Fox from CFVY, Sage and Neptune from SSSN, and one girl who we think was part of Emerald's team... but we're not certain. She hasn't spoken a single word since we found her."

"That's..." Ruby couldn't keep from looking between the tent and the massive doorway. The safety gates barred it- somehow they'd survived the crash intact, it looked like. People were gone. Beacon was gone. The wind moaned across the open top of the colosseum. She had so many questions she felt light headed, but her team was her top priority, "Let's check on Yang?"

"She's probably unconscious," Weiss brushed her hair back over her shoulder, trying to play off being ready to support Ruby if she collapsed or anything, "but it wouldn't hurt to visit."

The heiress glanced at Blake to make sure she was coming as well.

Blake's amber eyes were trained elsewhere, quietly watching Pyrrha wave a hand to pull aside the safety gates like they were nothing, only for her other hand to sweep in the opposite direction, sliding open one side of the twenty foot steel doorway as if it were paper. She barely had the chance to wonder over the sheer strength the other girl was displaying when two familiar figures stepped through to greet her - Sage and Yatsuhashi, looking worn and weary, but well enough otherwise. Blake strained to listen, her Faunus ears barely catching Pyrrha's gentle, "Any sign of them?..."

She nearly leaped out of her skin when Ren gently touched her shoulder.

"Let's go."

"Right..." Blake stole one last glance at the trio at the gate - watched Pyrrha reach as high as she could to place a comforting hand on Yatsuhashi's shoulder.

Shrugging off a sense of unease, she followed the others to the medical tent.

The light was muted by the thick tan canvas, but Ruby could still tell the place was a disaster. Mostly it was full of boxes- sheets, tools, packages of medical supplies all thrown together. Ruby squinted, her eyes still adjusting as she looked for her sister.

"Hey," an unfamiliar voice greeted her. She was two steps inside when she noticed Fox from Team CVFY in the corner, sitting on the ground, sorting through supplies. His milky eyes were trained unseeingly in her direction. Had he had that many scars before? He bared a feral grin. "Didn't think you'd wake up."

A small, scuffling sound alerted her to Robin's presence. The tiny faunus girl peeked out from underneath a cot and scurried to Fox, handing him a piece of torn plastic before making herself small and staring at Team RWBY with scared eyes.

There were two cots set up- one on each side of the tent. Really, a medical tent would have been equipped to house more, but as it was a standard four-person combat team sized affair, there was only enough room for two in addition to all the supplies. Both were occupied- in one, Jaune Arc lay still, his breathing slow and even. He seemed pale, even in the dark light, but otherwise he could just have been sleeping. In the other cot...

"Yang," Ruby was at her side in two steps, searching under the thin blanket for her hand to hold.

Giving Ruby her space, Blake crouched down with open arms, beckoning to Robin.

Robin's ears went back and she scurried over, burying her face in Blake's jacket with a series of tiny whimpering sounds.

Ren stuck near the tent's opening, crossing his arms as he spoke to Fox, "Has she woken again since this morning?"

Fox shrugged, sorting out a number of unbroken bottles, "Once or twice. Her aura's pretty burnt out and she's got that hearing thing going on, but she'll probably be fine. She made it this far, right?"

Ruby knelt at Yang's side, clinging to her hand. Something in her eased, hearing she would be fine. (Probably fine was close enough to fine.) Yang's tumble of gold hair lacked its usual luster, and definitely wasn't glowing. Her eyes were closed. Ruby scooted in as close as physically possible, looking her over and wishing she'd open her eyes.

Weiss hung back, as if standing guard over the proceedings.

"Fox?" Pyrrha's voice came from just outside the tent, and she stepped inside, stopping beside Weiss as her green eyes scoured the boxes scattered around them, "Where did you put the medical tape?"

Fox tossed the medical tape to Pyrrha. He sniffed the air twice, "Antiseptic too, or is your aura good?"

A much larger hand parted the tent as Fox spoke, and Blake had to back up so that Yatsuhashi could bow his head and step through, raising his bloodied arm in apology.

Weiss gave Yatsuhashi a wide berth, averse to getting blood on her coat, "What happened?"

Yatsuhashi accepted the tape from Pyrrha, briefly glancing between Fox and Weiss. "I'm fine," he answered both of them at once. With a quiet nod to Pyrrha and Ren, he left the tent.

Trying to move back to her original position, Blake tripped over an errant can, knocking into a stack of empty crates that toppled backwards in a painfully loud clatter that made her ears flatten.

Unfortunately, or perhaps in this case fortunately, the noise was just loud enough to cause Yang to stir. Her fingers squeeze the hand holding hers, and she turned her head just slightly, willing her eyes to open. Dulled lilac met bright crimson and the brawler froze, though the fear quickly turned to confusion, then finally, recognition. "...Ruby?"

"Yang!" Ruby clutched her hand, not caring that the edge of the cot was digging into her ribs. Her eyes started watering all of a sudden and she had to let go with one hand to clear her vision, "You're okay? Like, tired, but really okay?"

Yang blinked, squinting as if trying to work out a fourth year Dust Theory equation as she watched her little sister speak. Tentatively, like she wasn't sure if she had the right answer, Yang cracked a smile and rolled her eyes, rasping out a "Yeah I'm okay, but uh..." she reached over with her free hand to weakly cup Ruby's face, tilting her left, right, and left again, examining her eyes from every angle, "...what's all this?" A wink to hide her trepidation, "Family genes finally kicking in?"

Ruby hesitated for a second, confused, but then she remembered how the others had freaked out after she woke up and she looked down at her hands, "Oh, um, I dunno. Weiss said my eyes are weird, but I can see fine so I guess it's okay?" she shrank some.

Actually, no one had really said why they looked weird- Weiss had given her that look though, like she was scared, and then everything else had happened, and... her shoulders drew up towards her ears as she glanced at Yang, going off the family genes comment, "I guess, uh... are they red? Do they look bad?"

Yang was squinting again, but this time she squinted for a great deal longer, ending in a short disappointed sigh. "I'm not really sure what you just said, but you're gonna be fine," she ruffled Ruby's hair, "And hey your eyes match your highlights now!"

Ruby let Yang mess with her hair, but a couple more tears fell because she'd messed up and gotten Yang hurt again. She hugged on to her, shutting her eyes tight against replays of the fight last night. Yang hadn't used her heavy rounds to jump. That had to be what had happened, "You should have said you were out. I could've just grabbed you or something. Or made a different plan."

"But you said she'll recover," Weiss raised a brow at Fox as she watched over Ruby, sparing only a little attention to glance at Jaune.

"Probably. Hey," he motioned to Blake, who had taken a seat on the floor and was being gifted scraps of debris by the tiny Faunus, "you can leave that kid here if you like. I'll keep an eye on her."

Blake hesitated, amber eyes lingering on the little Faunus before sneaking a look over her shoulder at her partner, quietly watching as Yang struggled against fatigue to hug her sister back.

"...Yes, thank you Fox." Turning back to the little girl, Blake very carefully stowed her handful of new treasures in one of her pouches, then gently took both of the girl's tiny hands in her own. "Robin, I need you to do something very important for me," she nodded to her partner, "keep Yang company today. She's feeling poorly, and she might need hugs. A _lot_ of them. Can you do that?"

Robin looked at her hands in Blake's and then up at the bigger Faunus. Her ears went back, and she gave several small, quick nods.

"She needs to rest," Weiss moved to put a hand on Ruby's shoulder but hesitated and crossed her arms instead.

"Yeah," Ruby pulled back, sniffling. It was bad seeing what had happened to Beacon, and bad that Yang got hurt, but at least they were still together. And it did look like Yang was a hair's breadth from sleep. Ruby wiped her nose with the edge of her sleeve, "Hey, feel better soon, okay?"

The question still need to be asked, though. What _had_ happened to Beacon?

"We can reconvene in the main tent," Ren came up to Ruby's side and spoke softly, so as not to startle her. He looked to Pyrrha next, who had moved to stand beside Jaune's bed. "Are you coming?"

Pyrrha stood in silence, half-lidded emerald green eyes dulled to something closer to jade as she watched Jaune sleep. "...Yes," she put on a smile, and looked to her upperclassman, "Fox, it should only be a few hours before Neptune and Nora return. One of them will switch with you."

"Right," he waved Pyrrha and the others off, "Hurry up and go. It's crowded in here."

Ruby got back up, backing almost into Weiss, who caught her by the hood and steered her to the door of the tent. Ruby hung back, wringing part of her cloak in her hands, "Fox, thanks for... just for taking care of her. And I'm not going away anywhere, just to... just, I'll be back really soon, so if she wakes up tell her I'll be back."

The red-head cocked his head at her, "Sure, kid."

Outside again, Ruby gave her nose and eyes another scrub and straightened up. To her two teammates she said, "Well, guys. We made it back. And..." her focus switched to Pyrrha. The inflection in her voice turned up towards the end, "when the others get back do we get to hear what..." she couldn't help taking another look around at the shell of the colosseum they were using for shelter, "... what happened?"

Pyrrha's smile broke, leaving her momentarily speechless until Ren placed a hand on her shoulder. They shared a brief glance, his calm sympathy allowing the read-headed warrior to quickly recompose herself and meet Ruby's shining red eyes. "We'll tell you everything we know."


	49. The Beginning of the End

**A/N: So last week Defenestrator was going to post the chapters because I was... asleep? Or maybe she was posting Catnip and I was posting Search. Either way, Search got totally missed! We didn't realize till a few days into the week, so instead of the short chapter we'd planned on, here's a nice, solid, medium-length chapter to make up for that.**

 **Also, in case anyone hasn't noticed, we are now on a pretty serious alternate timeline- anything goes from here on out! (But that's nothing new.)**

 **Anyway, enjoy the ride,**

 **\- Fiercesomest**

* * *

It was still a few hours till evening, and some of the others still had work to do. Explanations would have to wait.

The determination to stay awake to find out what happened still gnawed at the back of Ruby's mind, but her limbs were lead and she had to keep blinking hard so her eyes didn't get that sleepy, fuzzy feeling as she let Weiss drag her back to the supply tent where there gear was being stored.

Weiss sighed a frustrated sigh, a hand buried in the back of her team leader's collar, "You need to rest."

"But I can still listen," Ruby whined. She was so tired, though. Every step felt like her limbs weighed ten more pounds. "And it's not fair- you heard what happened already. Can you just tell me?"

"It's better coming from Pyrrha," Weiss huffed to cover the fact that she'd spent most of her time here chasing people out of Ruby's tent so she could rest peacefully, scolding Fox for his lackluster medical knowledge, and trying to aura heal her comatose partner. She had no idea what had happened to Beacon.

Ruby gave a long whine and turned to Blake, "Blake? Pleeeease?"

Blake fell silent, continuing to watch the ground as they walked. It was the only way she could avoid those imploring puppydog eyes.

Beacon had fallen. All of Vale had fallen. That was... essentially, the extent of what she and Weiss had been told in their two days at the campsite.

After dragging the sisters to their respective tents (with a great deal of help from Yatsuhashi and Sage) there had actually been incredibly little time to grill anyone about their current situation.

Amber eyes flicked to Weiss. While Ruby was out cold, the heiress had shifted into the most fiercely protective partner Blake had ever seen, more intent on guarding Ruby than on gathering information.

Blake sidestepped a twisted scrap of Atlesian paladin. There hadn't been many people around to ask in the first place. Only three people seemed to stick around camp during the day - the girl who never came out of her tent, Jaune, and whoever was manning the medical tent. Pyrrha tended to patrol the wall's perimeter, and everyone else went out into the field. Always searching. Blake's brows furrowed. What... or who were they looking for?

The first day, she had tried talking to Yatsuhashi... but his stoicism had apparently risen to new heights. She couldn't even begin to describe the face he'd made when she'd asked about Velvet.

The second day, Sage had been much the same when she asked about Sun. Hearing Ren mention Neptune today had been an extremely welcome surprise that she hadn't realized how badly she'd needed. But hearing just how short Ren's definitive list of people was…

What had happened to the others?

Two days and they knew so little.

When Blake looked up, they had already arrived at the tent. Ruby was still locked onto her with hopeful blood-red eyes. Weiss stood at Ruby's side, and Blake dared not cross the ice-blue glare practically burning a hole through her forehead.

She offered Ruby an apologetic smile. "... The sooner you sleep, the sooner it will be evening."

* * *

Evening arrived right on schedule.

Gold-red streaks of setting sun peaked through the holes in the crumbling stadium walls, scattering the camp with intermittent patches of light. Twilight was normally a fairly silent hour at the camp. This evening was much the same, save for the steady crunching of steel-plated boots across the ground.

"You're pacing again." Ren opened one eye and looked up at Pyrrha from his position cross-legged on the ground. She had stopped mid-stride, looking abashed. "You pace when you're worried."

Pyrrha gripped her own arm, casting a fretful glance at the safety gate behind them. They were waiting on Neptune and Nora's return, after which they would have their small gathering to bring team RWBY up to speed. That thought set Pyrrha back to pacing.

Ren watched her for a few rounds more before sighing and nimbly hopping back up to his feet. "What's wrong."

Pyrrha froze under his piercing pink gaze. "It's getting late, so I was thinking..." she turned her back to him, "We should talk to team RWBY tomorrow."

Ren's eyes narrowed. "Pyrrha."

"It's... it's just, I would hate to wake Ruby at this hour, and Yang is still-"

"Pyrrha," Ren gently tugged on his teammate's shoulder until she very reluctantly turned back around. She still wouldn't look at him. "...You're avoiding them."

"I'm..." Pyrrha crossed her arms. She looked as though she was trying to fold in on herself. "I'm just waiting on Nora and Neptune..."

Ren stared her down. Pyrrha's downcast eyes looked almost hazel. "Why are you avoiding them?"

They fell into silence - a stalemate of wills - Ren refusing to supply a suggestion that Pyrrha might latch onto in defiance of supplying a true answer.

Just when Ren was about to leave things be and return to meditating, the darkening sky lit up as though it was daylight again for a single moment - a snaking column of electricity connecting from the clouds to a nearby point just outside the stadium's walls. A resounding crack of thunder followed in the lightning's wake.

"Nora's signal," Ren breathed, adrenaline flooding his system in a singular, sickening wave.

Pyrrha flung her arms wide, pulling the safety gate apart in one fell swoop.

They immediately spotted Neptune roughly one hundred yards away, his shock of unnatural blue hair impossible to miss as he ran for dear life as quickly as his lanky legs could carry him through the forest.

They weren't as prepared to see the massive horde of Grimm chasing after him, each one identical to the next - shining red eyes, snarling masks of bone, oddly opaque smoky black bodies in a distinctly human shape, each and every one of them sporting a painfully familiar tail.

They'd found Sun. ...or at least, his clones.

The clones rushed along the ground and through the trees as fast as liquid smoke. There was no sound of their breathing, no yelling, just the shush of leaves and beat of their feet on the ground behind Neptune as they raced to catch him in the short span of open ground before the colosseum gates. Two came together, joining arms and allowing a third clone to spring off of them, lunging forward, fingers curled like claws to catch Neptune's jacket.

Clawed ashen fingertips brushed Neptune's collar.

 _"Duck!"_

Neptune dove forward, rolling right under Pyrrha's spear as it flew straight through the clone reaching for him, taking out half a dozen more as it vanished into the horde.

Pyrrha watched him roll back up into a full sprint. She whipped to face Ren. "Help hold them off."

Ren nodded, dashing straight out into the fray.

Pyrrha followed, but stopped just outside the gates long enough to slam them shut.

The massive gates sheared off the view of the western sky, throwing the forest into complete shadow but for the ember-bright glow of the clones' eyes as they coursed into the open break past the trees, shadowy mouths split into manic grins as they threw themselves at the humans that had so foolishly leapt into the fight.

A pained scream sounded out somewhere among the trees and, as one, the shadows checked, some stumbling over others, the majority that weren't smashed into ash by Pyrrha's shield or Ren's Stormflower doubling over. They clutched their legs and dissolved into the night.

"Got him!" came Nora's voice from somewhere deep beyond the treeline. A snarling, wounded sort of animal sound accompanied the shout.

"Sun!" Neptune nearly dropped his weapon, immediately scrambling in the direction of Nora's voice.

"Wait!" Ren called after him but stopped short, tossing a brief glance over his shoulder at Pyrrha.

She shook her head and waved for him to follow, catching her spear as it returned and settling into a defensive stance, presumably to guard the campsite. He nodded to her.

Ren turned and chased after the sounds of Neptune crashing through the underbrush. He cringed - the noise and decidedly panicked nature of Neptune's sprinting was only going to draw more Grimm. "Nora!" It was difficult to focus while in motion, but Ren tried to seek out her aura, reaching out with his own to feel for her location even as he called, "Where are you!"

"Ren! How many times do I have to tell you," Nora emerged from a tangle of downed trees, gritting her teeth as she dragged Sun out from the mess of branches. But it wasn't Sun. Well, it was, per say, but his face... red markings spiraled off the mask and up and down his arms, a bloody accent to the bone plates protruding from his arms and back. His dirty white shirt hung in tatters from his shoulders. One of his legs stuck out at a distinctly unnatural angle. "use the sloth call. We didn't practice it so you- whoops!"

Nora jumped, dropping Sun as he lurched, snarling and lashing out at her with clawed hands.

A pink wall of aura flashed into existence, harmlessly deflecting the claws assaulting it.

Ren landed at Nora's side, watching with gritted teeth as Neptune ran in and jabbed his glaive into Sun's side, electricity lighting the area for a few seconds before he let up and dropped to pin his partner to the ground, or, struggle to anyway.

Holding their current barrier firmly in place, Ren leaned a bit closer to Nora, touching shoulders with her. "Where did you find him?" he asked, keeping his eyes trained on Neptune and Sun in case he needed to erect a new barrier.

A long half-snarl, half-whine seeped from Sun's slack jaw as he twitched with the residual effects of the electricity. Now that he lay mostly still, it was easier to see that he was filthy, his arms and shirt and mouth crusted with dirt and what could have been blood.

"He was in one of those old wrecked Atlas ships," Nora sat down hard in the leaves, the battle light fading from her teal eyes as she let Neptune handle his partner. Magnhild at her back as she worked a crick out of her shoulder to avoid thinking about what he had been doing when they found him. "Do you think we can fix him?"

Ren lowered his barrier, but kept one pistol trained on Sun even as Neptune tried desperately to get a response from him. He couldn't take his eyes off of the fallen Faunus - Sun's grisly visage dredged up unpleasant memories of his own brush with a similar fate when he'd been afflicted by that ancient Grimm toxin - an experience Ren hoped never to repeat. "...We should get him back to camp."

"No!" Neptune whirled around, his fists curling ever tighter in the remaining scraps of Sun's shirt. "No - there's no way - Grimm die in captivity!"

Nora blinked at the tension in Neptune's fists.

"But he won't be in captivity," she looked between Ren and Neptune like this was a foregone conclusion, "He'll be hiding in those maintenance hallways. Did we not talk about this?"

"No, no we did not talk about this at all-" Neptune stopped short at the sudden volley of shots Ren fired over his shoulder. A lone Beowolf that had just slinked out from behind a tree fell dead behind them.

"We need to move," Ren stowed his pistols and knelt down to help lift Sun, trusting Nora to cover them should any other stragglers appear, and even though Neptune wordlessly cooperated, his brows stayed deeply furrowed in reluctance.

* * *

Weiss sat in the half light of the storage tent, watching over her sleeping partner. Despite all of Ruby's complaining, she'd fallen asleep almost as soon as her head touched the pack they'd been using as a makeshift pillow. She lay still now, eyes closed, her breathing deep and even. One of her hands lay across her stomach, and the other was in Weiss's. She'd waited till Ruby was asleep before returning to her aura healing attempts.

Soft white light, like moonlight, like snow, suffused the two figures. Weiss closed her eyes, focusing. She didn't know what was wrong with Ruby exactly- no one seemed to be forthcoming with ideas either- but Jaune hadn't woken up and Ruby had, and Ruby was going to again.

To be fair, she highly doubted that Jaune Arc had been trying to aura heal a dog, of all things. It had worked for Ruby once, even. But it certainly hadn't worked this last time.

Now Weiss sat with her like she'd been doing for the past... three days? Two? The white light of her aura flickered as she moved her left hand to rub her temple.

Silent as the shadows cast upon the pair when the tent's flap opened up to admit the starlight outside, Blake poked her head inside, amber eyes wide in the dark, watching Weiss work. She stood there for a while, as if weighing her decision to finally step inside and wordlessly sit beside her teammates.

Weiss looked up at the rustle of cloth, the light of her aura fading back out. "Is everyone back?"

She'd been dreading having to wake Ruby up. Well, more dreading that she might not be able to, but it was past time they were told what had happened to their school. And Vale itself. She'd been watching Ruby like a hawk, but that didn't mean she hadn't noticed the thick, black smoke from fires in the city proper marring the skies earlier in the day.

Blake stared off into space, unsure how to respond. A deep terror ate away at her, leaving her feeling as though she'd just been gutted.

Sun... what had happened to Sun? Blake been so happy to see Neptune dash into the medical tent for supplies that she almost missed seeing Sun through the tent's opening as Nora carted him away... even that brief glimpse of him, black and red and white and every color that Sun was not... Neptune's tears of joy upon finding her and hearing all of RWBY was safely at camp - Blake could tell he was crying for so many other reasons as well. So many that Blake was suddenly far less sure of just how much she wanted know about what had happened.

At this point though, it didn't seem like they had much of a choice. "Pyrrha is asking to see us in the medical tent," she spoke softly, finally daring to look at Weiss. The heiress's ice blue eyes were rimmed with red, bloodshot, as though she was minutes from dropping just as hard and fast as Ruby had. "...Whenever we're ready."

"Alright," Weiss reached to give Ruby a gentle shake, "Ruby? Ruby, wake up."

She didn't.

"Ruby," Weiss said, more threatening this time. Her team leader stirred, and her eyes flickered open. Weiss couldn't see the color in the dark, but they weren't glowing. Her shoulders drooped with relief, "We're going to the medical tent."

Ruby had been dreaming of snow. She scrubbed at her eyes to get the sleep out.

"Hey," she greeted her two teammates with a long, still-waking-up sigh. It was dark, and cold even in the tent. Weiss's hair stood out in the black a little. She propped herself up on her elbows, bleary with fatigue, "Is Pyrrha there? She's going to tell us stuff, right?"

Blake smiled, but it didn't quite reach her eyes. "Yes, I think so."

The wind made an eerie, howling noise as it passed over the rim of the colosseum, making the hair prickle up at the back of Ruby's neck. The same rim blotted out all the stars that weren't directly overhead. The moon hadn't risen high enough to be visible yet.

Crescent Rose felt heavier than usual at her back. She knew Weiss was tired. Blake was tired. They were all tired- after all these weeks of travelling... Ruby steeled herself. They had to know what happened.

Their footsteps crunched on the dirt path as they reached the medical tent. Ruby got to the flap first, shielding her eyes from the lamplight as she ducked in.

The center of the tent was a little bit clear. It looked like Fox or someone had rearranged the few cots to make room for a single crate, spread with a map of the area. The upperclassman in question sat cross-legged on the end of Jaune's cot, by his legs. Jaune looked pale in the light of the Dust lamp. A sheen of sweat gleamed on his forehead.

Sage Ayana, of team SSSN sat on a low crate nearby, but by virtue of his stature and tall green hair seemed almost level with Fox. His yellow-green eyes seemed to glow in the light, and the tattoos circling his neck almost moved in the shadows.

Nora was present, but she looked anxious, wringing her Magnhild's shaft like she had something else she needed to be doing.

Robin, the little fox faunus, was nowhere to be seen, but she could have been sleeping behind any of the piles of medical supplies stacked around the tent.

Blake was the only one who had caught sight of her, the tiny tips of her fox ears poking out from beneath the warm blankets where she'd snuggled down against Yang. The brawler in question was awake, but she remained flat on her back, one arm curled around Robin, amethyst eyes heavy with fatigue.

Not that it mattered much if Yang dozed off. Unless Pyrrha decided to start shouting the details of what had transpired, Blake doubted she'd be able to hear much anyway. Fortunately Blake had managed to unearth a broken pencil and piece of scrap paper to take notes for her before gingerly sitting herself on the cracked crate closest to Yang's cot.

Neptune was nowhere to be seen - probably tending to Sun if Blake had to hazard a guess. Yatsuhashi was likewise not present, but she suspected his absence had less to do with his excuse of guarding the gates, and more with his desire to avoid discussing the other half of his team.

Pyrrha sat before the crate holding the map, head bowed and silent as she stared into the small oil lamp they'd placed on the map's center. Ren sat beside her, arms crossed and eyes closed. They'd been sitting that way for a few minutes now, the air crackling with tension and heavy with apprehension.

After what seemed like years, Pyrrha finally lifted her head. "I..." her eyes danced across each face in the room in quick succession, then fell, defeated, back to the map. "I don't know where to start."

Ren opened his eyes, placing a hand on her shoulder. He looked to Ruby. "What do you want to know?"

Ruby felt calmer, meeting Ren's eyes. He didn't look at her like she had something wrong with her, or avoid looking at her altogether. It didn't make choosing a place to start her questions any easier, though. She approached the crate and sat down on the dirt floor of the tent. Weiss hesitated, torn between looking after her charge and sitting on the ground. Reluctantly, she took a spot on a crate next to Blake.

Ruby glanced at the rough map. It was marked with downed ships and Grimm sightings. There were a lot of Grimm sightings. "I guess... when did it start?"

Pyrrha folded her hands in her lap, eyes darting from Fox, to Sage, and back to the map. "...The tournament."

Ren nodded, "The one-on-one rounds, to be more specific."

Pyrrha could still see the look of fear in that boy's eyes - what had his name been... Mercury? Velvet standing over him, looking equally terrified. His leg bent completely sideways from her pinpoint strike. His aura had already broken. The match had already been called. It was a miracle she hadn't been imprisoned.

That should have been the first sign that something was awry.

Pyrrha bit her lip.

There was no way they could have known.

 _"Excuse me, is this the dorm for Team RWBY?"_

 _Pyrrha looked up from her scroll to find a short ginger-haired girl with eyes as green as her own standing before the very door she was looking for. Abandoning her message to Jaune and quickly stowing her scroll, Pyrrha came to a stop next to the newcomer. "Yes it is."_

 _"Oh fantastic!" The girl threw her arms in the air and practically skipped in excitement. "How do I open the door?"_

 _Pyrrha's curious smile faltered just an inch, "I'm sorry, they're not here. Their mission was delayed because of a snowstorm." Ozpin had been quick to reassure them that their friends were fine, but sadly, he'd also said they were likely to miss the entire tournament. "Who are you looking for?"_

 _The girl's crestfallen expression recovered in almost an instant. "My friend Ruby! Do you know her?"_

 _Her grin was infectious, and Pyrrha couldn't help but grin right back. "I do. She's my friend, too."_

 _A gasp of intrigue. "If you are Ruby's friend... and I am Ruby's friend... Does this mean... that we can be friends as well?!"_

 _Pyrrha laughed. This girl was so strange, but in such a pleasant way. "I suppose it does. What's your name then, friend?"_

 _"My name is Penny!" She stated with delight - a look that dissolved into confusion over the hand Pyrrha was offering her. "Oh!" She took Pyrrha's hand and shook it. "And what is your name?"_

 _There was always a distinct pleasure in finding someone that hadn't heard of her. "Pyrrha..." She recognized this girl now. From Atlas. She was a fellow finalist, and she was... heavy. Her hand felt heavy, and very solid. Something made it extremely difficult to pull away when Penny's pocket beeped._

 _"I'm sorry," Penny checked her scroll and pouted. "Oh, Ciel is looking for me. I have to go!"_

 _Pyrrha nodded, trying not to think about the odd tingling sensation the other girl left in her wake. "Good luck in your match tomorrow!" she called after Penny, who had already taken off down the hall, "Scarlet is a tough opponent!"_

 _Penny stopped just before rounding the corner and positively beamed. "His name is like Ruby's, so I like him already. Goodbye friend Pyrrha!"_

There was no way anyone could have known.

"Ruby..." Pyrrha forced herself to meet Ruby's gaze. "Do you know... a girl named Penny?"


	50. Inhospitable

**A/N: Sorry this is late againnnn aahhhHh my mom visited this weekend and last weekend and she bought me sushi - it was SO good. Anchovie pizza was... less good. But at least now we've tried it... x.o**

 **Anyway thanks so much for hangin' in there!**

 **HUGS**

 **D**

* * *

Ruby sat cross-legged, her hands braced on her ankles as she tried to connect the one-on-one rounds of the tournament to the destruction of the school... of all of Vale. All she could think of, though, was of how tired Pyrrha looked in the lamplight. Her patchwork armor looked a lot like her old gear, but it had been damaged and repaired with what looked like scrap. Pieces had dirt and even the beginnings of rust on them. Ruby had never seen Pyrrha's gear in anything less than top shape. Even her crimson hair had lost its usual shine.

She refocused when Pyrrha mentioned her friend.

"Penny?" Ruby brightened up as memories of the couple of days she and her friend had spent together flitted past her mind's eye. True, their exploring had mostly been spent searching for Blake the first time. That was back when they'd just found out she had kitty ears and everyone was stressed out. The second time, they'd mostly run away from those Atlas guys. The memory of the heavy /crunch/ of metal and plastic when Penny stopped that van with her bare hands (technically, her silicone polymer coated super awesome robot hands) never failed to lift Ruby's spirits- she regretted not getting a recording to use as a notification sound for her scroll.

Not that she would have heard it much recently. Her scroll had been out of power for weeks. She didn't even carry it on her anymore- probably it was with the junk in her bag. She railroaded her thoughts back to why Pyrrha was bringing Penny up in a talk in the middle of the ruins of Amity Colosseum. Beyond the tent walls, the wind moaned, distant and cold across the rim of the high circular walls. Ruby swallowed, her heart sinking, "I know Penny. She's from Atlas and she's really nice and-" and also a robot, which was unspeakably cool, and still a secret. She changed tack, "... and is she...?"

Her gut twisted as she searched Pyrrha's green eyes, anticipating the answer to her question even though she hadn't quite gotten the question out.

Though Pyrrha's gaze remained fixed on Ruby, her mind's eye had traveled elsewhere, looking into a time and place she wished she could forget. She'd never seen so much red. Scarlet. Scarlet everywhere. _Everywhere._

"We don't know where she is," Ren quietly answered Ruby's unspoken question. "But..." his eyes flicked to Sage, overflowing with empathy, "That might be for the best."

Ruby watched, uncomprehending as Sage leaned forward, his fists clenched. The dark numerals on his neck moved as his throat worked.

"She just..." Nora bit her lip, teal eyes searching the map, her teammates, her grip on Magnhild, helpless for an explanation, "... went crazy."

"Penny went crazy...?" Scooting closer to the map, Ruby struggled to find the words that would get the rest of the rest of the story. The way the others avoided her gaze told her she didn't want the rest, though. Part of her instinctively wanted her team to be close by, and she glanced to make sure they were still there- Yang resting with Robin in her arms, Blake on a crate next to her. Weiss was scowling at the dirt floor, trying to stay awake.

From the edge of Jaune's cot, Fox's expression sharpened towards the tent's entrance. Ruby turned at the sound of footsteps as several of the others moved to stand and grip their weapons.

The lamplight flickered as the tent flap drew back, admitting a lean man with angled features. The long shaft of a sword jutted its place at his back- the blade showed on his other side, the metal dull in the low light. His shirt and pants bore the evidence of long weeks of travel, as did the remains of the tattered red cape that clung to his shoulders.

Ruby's heart leaped, "Uncle Qrow?"

His red eyes were a deep crimson as he took in the arrangement of supplies, the map, the oil lamp for about two seconds before Ruby was on him, clinging to him around his middle. He spread his arms slightly, bemused by this sudden development. "Started the party without me, huh?"

In his left hand he held a familiar looking cane.

Outside, the wind slowly picked up, gaining speed until it was nearly howling, whipping the tent flaps into a frenzy. Small metal trinkets lying about the room began to float as Pyrrha stood, her shocked expression darkening into an anger so fierce her voice broke on a single word, " _You._ "

Blake, standing with her hand resting on her undrawn weapon, glanced at Yang's dozing form, then looked between Ruby and Pyrrha, trying to gauge how to react to this strange shabby man. "Ruby... who is this?"

Ruby started back as Crescent Rose shifted under the influence of Pyrrha's semblance. Her uncle put a hand on her head, gently brushing her off of him and pushing the cane into her hands so he could face the others, "Might want to give me some space, kiddo."

"Huh?" She allowed herself to be pushed aside and stood with the cane, looking in confusion from Pyrrha's closed fists and livid expression to her teammates- Blake had asked her something, but she'd missed it, and Weiss was gripping her sword, looking like she'd just started awake in the middle of a firefight and was trying to decide who was on her side. The others sat poised, nerves on a razor's edge as Qrow approached the crate in the center of the tent.

Nora, meanwhile, took her cue from Pyrrha and bristled at the stranger, Magnhild heavy in her grip, "I don't know who you are, mister, but if she doesn't like you, I don't like you either."

Qrow held up his empty hands. They were rough, with dirt grained in so they looked like they might never be clean. He met Pyrrha's gaze, "A lot of people are looking for you. You might not like it, but I'm on your side. Say the word and I'll clear out, but I'm here to try to tell you what you need to know."

Lightning flashed overhead, heavy thunder shaking the ground as Pyrrha stepped forward so she was toe-to-toe with Qrow. Eyes normally bright emerald had darkened to something far closer to hazel as Pyrrha searched Qrow's weary face. His perpetual five-o'clock shadow, the worry lines creasing his brow, his eyes. Those exhausted red eyes. Just like the Grimm. Just like...

The unbound metal scraps floating in the air began to swirl, and without a word, Pyrrha stepped right past Qrow and out of the tent, dragging him behind her with an invisible iron grip on the weapon attached to his back.

Ruby backed up almost into Weiss to avoid the floating screws and bits of scrap, not to mention Pyrrha and her uncle.

Qrow's fatigue and surprise at being hauled backwards by his weapon gave way to a roguish grin. He flashed a wink at his conscious niece as he vanished through the tent flap, leaving the batch of students to figure out whether to disarm or continue to stand ready.

"Who /was/ that?" Weiss held a hand to her ear to keep her earrings from brushing her face in the wake of Pyrrha's magnetism.

Ruby exchanged a glance with the others and went to the tent flap to see what was happening.

Outside in the worsening storm, Qrow's humor superseded his self preservation instincts. Lightning flashed again, and he commented over his shoulder to Pyrrha, "Can't say this is the first time I've been dragged out of a public space by a beautiful woman."

The magnetism pulling at Qrow's weapon increased tenfold, dragging him up into the air, where Pyrrha continued to push him along, letting him hang a few paces in front of her. She spared him a brief glance, looking for all the world as though she was seriously considering flinging him over the arena's walls, but she resolutely set her eyes forward, marching towards the nearest arena wall and its darkened entrance to the maintenance halls.

Qrow grimaced as his sword belt dug into him- it would have been easier to unhook his weapon, but hey. If it made the kid feel better, he might as well ride this out.

Meanwhile, Ruby bolted out of the light of the tent, breaking into a run to catch up with the two.

"Ruby!" Weiss hissed, chasing her partner out into the darkness and bitter wind.

The younger girl ignored her, though and gritted her teeth to try and put on some speed. Her steps faltered briefly as her semblance refused to activate. A sweat slicked her forehead despite the cold and she clutched at a dull pain in her chest- it was like her aura hadn't recovered yet. She could still jog, though, so she pressed on.

"Pyrrha!" she yelled over the wind as it whipped her cape sideways.

A few paces from the towering wall, Pyrrha turned, flashing a scowl fiercer than the storm swirling overhead... one that dissipated almost instantly upon recognizing Ruby. The fire left her eyes, and with it went her grip on Qrow, though, Pyrrha paid him little mind as he dropped unceremoniously to the ground, all of her focus on the girl in red running through the storm towards her.

Ruby stopped a few yards short of her friend, bending at the waist to catch her breath as she squinted against the wind in the dark. How had it gotten so stormy so quickly? And how was the wind blowing so hard in the arena, where they should have been sheltered from it? The cold reached all the way down her throat to her lungs as she pulled in air. Finally, she flung out an arm, "What... what's going on? How did...?"

Weiss crashed into her from behind. Ruby's elbows hit the dirt hard, and she struggled to get free of her partner and her tangled up cloak.

Qrow just righted himself, sitting on the ground, legs akimbo and hand cautiously near the hilt of his sword. Pyrrha wasn't watching him- of course she wasn't. But he watched her, and he wiped his mouth with his free hand to get some of the dirt off of it, "You should tell her."

Thunder rolled through the clouds overhead. "I am never," Pyrrha turned sharply to face Qrow, a wild arc of lightning illuminating brown eyes that seemed to burn at their edges, "listening to you ever again." Magnetism poured from her entire body in a black wave, pushing Qrow along the ground and into the dark maintenance hallway, where she followed.

Ruby felt Crescent Rose and the buckles on her gear draw forward, wanting to follow too. Pyrrha was so strong. Had she always been this strong? And her eyes... Ruby exchanged a glance with Weiss, or tried to in the thick darkness. Myrtenaster took on a low glow, casting a dim icy glow in a small circle around them.

"Well," the heiress spat and raked strands of white out of her face, "we've come this far."


	51. Amber

**A/N: Hey folks! Long story short, Defenestrator and I both somehow forgot to post the chapter last weekend. Ha! Yes. Good times. So here's last week's AND this week's installments all rolled into one slightly-longer-than-normal chapter.**

 **Everyone's getting around to the plot!**

 **\- Fiercesomest**

* * *

" _Well we've come this far."_

Ruby nodded, and she and Weiss picked themselves up off the ground and walked to the dark mouth of the maintenance hall, bracing against the wind as they did so.

Everything quieted once they got into the tunnel. Everything except a low, electric hum. Weiss called up one of her glyphs, granting the pair enough light to see a few feet into the darkness.

The hair on the back of Ruby's neck prickled up. She gripped Crescent Rose and tried to keep watch in every direction. There was just something about tunnels.

It didn't take long for them to catch up to Pyrrha. Even if the tunnel had branched, the dull staccato beat of her footsteps and the low scrape of Qrow sliding along the ground were a pretty dead giveaway for their position in the empty corridor.

There was no light this far in, but even outside of Weiss's circle of blue, Pyrrha could feel where she was going, following a clear metal path towards softer sounds coming from farther in.

Voices - or at least, once desperate pleading voice, and what sounded like guttural growls and snarls - gradually became clearer as they neared a sharp bend in the hall.

"Come on man, please, please say something." A low growl. "You have to be in there," the voice broke in a hiccuped sob, "you- you have to..."

"...Neptune," Pyrrha called gently as she passed Qrow to round the corner first.

The boy in question practically leaped to his feet, quickly swiping an arm across his eyes. His trident, activated and glowing a slightly brighter blue than Weiss's, lay on the ground before an enormous access door barred with slatted metal shutters. Small squares of aquamarine light patterned a small section of the floor beyond the shutters, the remainder cloaked in pitch darkness.

Still in the midst of trying to smooth out the telltale hitches in his breathing, Neptune ran a hand through his hair and fussed with the tattered sleeves of his once-pristine red jacket, "Jeeze, Pyrrha, you can't just sneak up on a guy like..." he tapered off at the sight of Qrow, Ruby and Weiss.

The heiress lifted her weapon, casting a little more light as she took in Neptune's ragged state.

He looked harried, almost broken. And had he been crying? Ruby took a step forward, intending to... what? Comfort him?

Something _slammed_ into the shutters, causing her to squeak and leap back to Weiss's side.

A screaming, animal sound filled the wide, dark space. Red eyes gleamed, flickering in and out of view as coal black fingers clenched like claws and yanked at the slatted metal hard enough to shake it.

The cries died into the sound of heavy, huffing breaths. A distinctly humanoid form dragged itself back to the shadows.

Ruby swallowed thickly. She looked between Neptune and Pyrrha. Weiss was more vocal.

"What is this?" she twitched the hilt of her sword, indicated everyone present. Her free hand twisted the fabric of Ruby's sleeve, as if to unconsciously keep her away from the thing behind the grate. "Are you crazy? Why would you keep a Grimm in here?"

"Don't call him that!" Neptune snapped, his composure shattering under the unexpected duress of Weiss's sharp comments, "He is not- Sun is not a Grimm. He... he's not..."

Pyrrha went to him, letting the only slightly taller boy hide his face in her shoulder as a fresh wave of sobs wracked his body. Her eyes found Qrow's. "Can you fix this?" she motioned to the red eyes watching them from behind the grate. "Can you undo what she's done?"

Ruby stared at Pyrrha, at Neptune. He was crying. Her mouth went dry as she looked at the narrowed slivers of crimson behind the metal grating.

Qrow sighed and pulled his flask from his belt. He shook his head, unscrewing the cap with calloused fingers, "I hate to break it to you, but it's going to get worse. A lot worse."

"Okay, this is all very dramatic, but what exactly is going to get worse?" Weiss's voice had a hard, sleep-deprived edge to it as she disentangled her hand from Ruby's sleeve and pointed to the barred off section of the hall, "You're telling me that _that_ is _Sun_ , and then saying it's going to get worse? Who even are you?"

"Someone who cannot be trusted." Pyrrha said matter-of-factly, eyes tracking Sun's silent slinking form in an unspoken refusal to even look at the man still sitting on the ground.

Qrow tipped his flask back, taking a swallow. He gave Ruby a half grin and shrugged towards Pyrrha, "If I didn't know any better, I'd think she was mad at me."

The temperature in the corridor plummeted, a light breeze tousling Pyrrha's hair as finally turned her head, just enough to leer at Qrow from the very corners of her eyes. "Ruby... you called this man your uncle?"

Ruby found her voice at last. It was small but firm as she edged herself not quite between her uncle and her friend, but closer to that, protective of the seated man, "Pyrrha, why are you acting like this?"

Pyrrha blinked in surprise, trading hardened brown for tired emerald once more. "Ruby..." She looked away, "I... I'm sorry." She walked away, ushering Neptune along with her towards the entrance they'd come from.

Her footsteps echoed on the steel flooring of the empty hall. The light from Neptune's weapon vanished as they followed the curve of the wall, out towards the entrance. Myrtenaster's circle of pale blue light shifted as Weiss lifted her sword, stepping closer to the grate to look inside.

Ruby stayed at the edge, sitting down on the floor and biting her lip. Her cloak pooled around her. "Uncle Qrow?"

Qrow gave his flask a long look. He capped it.

"Hey," he gestured to the fraying ends of her cloak, "Looks like you had a long trip."

Ruby tried to smile but couldn't quite muster it. They'd been travelling for weeks in the ice and snow. They hadn't seen anyone else- anyone alive, anyway, besides that little girl- and they hadn't heard from anyone in all that time.

James Point might still be holding out for them, waiting for help- they had to be holding out.

She'd been so sure that they could fix everything if they just got back to Beacon.

Now at least it made sense why they hadn't been getting any signal on their scrolls. Vale, the wreckage, the smoke... she hadn't specifically looked for the CCT tower rising against the sky, but there was no way it had been left standing. She swallowed a couple of times, wanting to say something but not sure what. What had happened to the school? What had happened to Sun? She braced her hands on her ankles as the questions welled up in her. What had been wrong with Pyrrha's eyes? What was wrong with her own eyes? She rubbed them and her sleeve came away damp.

"Is dad okay?" she managed shakily.

A low growling emanated from beyond the gate. Weiss pulled away from it, paler than usual.

Qrow chuckled at her reaction and answered Ruby's question, "Tai's okay. He's picked up a couple strays leftover from all this, but as far as I know nothing crazy ever happens out on that rock."

"He's really your uncle?" Weiss asked, looking Qrow up and down. Her gaze lingered on the tattered remains of Qrow's cape. She moved to stand by Ruby, casting glances into the darkness surrounding them as if it might discharge some new danger.

"And you're really the little Schnee," Qrow smirked, watching Weiss frown. He held up a hand, "Excuse me- the _middle_ Schnee. Unless we're talking about height here."

Weiss bridled at the comment, gripping her sword, "Why you-"

"Hey," Ruby broke in, her arm out at Weiss's knee height to stop her advance. She sniffed wetly, gave Qrow a reproachful look and crossed her arms. "Be nice."

Qrow's smirk turned rueful, still lingering at the corner of his mouth as he reached for his flask again. He just couldn't stay away long. "Yeah. Not exactly one of my strong suits."

The metallic sound of the flask's lid unscrewing was the only noise for a few beats.

He took a long drink and motioned to Weiss, "Your family's a real piece of work, you know that?"

Weiss's gaze hardened.

"Good old supporters of Atlas's defense tech," Qrow drawled. His red eyes narrowed and his tone slid into a darker range, "the same tech that turned on us when this all went down."

"What are you talking about?" the heiress growled. Ruby put her hand out again, her breath catching in her throat as she remembered the plane that had come to James Point. The plane full of 'malfunctioning' robots.

That had been weird at the time. Really weird. But somehow she'd just filed it away as a glitch in the system.

"Maybe we can trade stories," Ruby said. She cringed as her positive nature prompted her to tell about how she'd gotten to pilot a Paladin, as if that made up for the death of half a mountain town or more. As if that could be anything in the face of the destruction they'd come home to here in Vale. "Maybe you can go first?"

Qrow lowered his flask and wiped his mouth on his wrist, "Sure you don't want to wait for your friend to tell you?"

Ruby and Weiss exchanged a glance. They could always talk to Pyrrha later. If she would still talk to them.

"If I'm going to get into this, you'd better at least do something about the temperature," Qrow got up stiffly, rubbing the seat of his pants where he'd been in contact with the icy metal floor.

Weiss scowled at him, but she shifted Myrtenaster's chamber shifted to red. The blade thrust into the thick paneled floor and she channeled heat into it until a circle of metal two feet in diameter glowed orange.

"Happy?" she asked, freeing her blade and returning it to her side and shifting the chamber so it gave off a gentle blue glow again.

"Not bad," Qrow stooped a little, holding his hands over the warm spot. "So, how far back do you want me to start?"

Ruby settled a little closer to the circle- close enough to feel the heat, but not so close she'd be charring her boots on the burning hot section of the floor. "Um, at... the start?"

Her uncle stared at her a moment as the request sunk in.

"Good choice," he chuckled. The exhaustion came through this time, and Ruby noticed the lines around his mouth and eyes. They made the shadows on his face that much deeper. He combed his fingers through his hair absentmindedly, gazing at the dull orange glow as if he could find right words in the heat. At last, he sighed, "What's your favorite fairy tale?"

* * *

Qrow tipped his glass, the ice giving a pleasant clink as he considered the last few drops of alcohol. The tavern kept its lights dim. He inhaled the smell of smoke and alcohol, his red eyes wandering over the clientele. A game of cards ran at one table. The thin plastic snap of lien on wood carried distinctly over the low chatter. The _thunk_ of metal in the mantlepiece came from knife-throwing competition going on over by the fireplace. This was his kind of place. His muted red cloak draped over his chair, full and long. Practically brand new, even though he'd spent the better part of a year in the field. Streaks of gray had just started showing in his dark hair.

Moonlight slipped in through the tavern's front windows. Tonight was a Huntsman's Moon. Those meant good or bad luck, depending on who you talked to. A wry smile pulled at the corner of his mouth as he glanced at the girl he'd been watching all evening.

She'd come on a horse, just like Oz had said. Not that he believed everything Oz said. After all, what he'd been told was pretty crazy. He leaned forward, considering whether to call for another drink.

The girl was at the bar. Her brown hair hung neatly at shoulder length. She had a couple pieces of armor and what looked like an extendable staff leaned up on the bar next to her, but otherwise seemed pretty plain. White blouse. Some sort of leather vest/corset deal from what he could see past the pine green cloak. Not too hard on the eyes, if you were into forest ranger types.

Rising from his chair, Qrow decided it was time to see how much truth there was in this whole 'Maiden' thing.

The tavern's ambient noise wasn't enough to mask the distinct sound of footsteps coming right up behind her, and the girl in question turned just enough to look over her shoulder at Qrow. Deep brown eyes traveled from his face, down to his polished boots, and back again. She turned back to her half-empty tankard without a word and took a hearty drink.

Qrow took the spot at the counter next to her, dropping a few cards of lien on the smooth surface next to his empty glass. When he had the barkeep's attention, he tipped his head to the girl, "Fill hers up, while you're at it."

The barkeep nodded, his stately rack of antlers nearly scraping the tavern's ceiling as he set about pouring their drinks.

The girl couldn't have rolled her eyes harder if she tried. "Wow. Is that really the first step in your playbook? Lower her inhibitions?" She nevertheless allowed the barkeep to refill her drink, though she pointedly ignored it in favor of the small bowl of complimentary peanuts, popping a few into her mouth. "You must be a real catch."

"Yikes. Remind me to watch out for that chip on your shoulder," Qrow took a swallow of his drink, enjoying the burn of the alcohol down his throat, "Got anything to do with why you're travelling alone?"

The girl side-eyed him, slowly raking over his appearance once more. "I'll give you points for being easier on the eyes than most of the old men that try to pick me up in bars," she reached for her refilled drink and pulled it close, flicking away an errant bit of foam dripping down its side, "but you _really_ know how to make yourself sound like a stalker."

"Okay, fine," Qrow chuckled, even as he shrugged in defeat, "You don't like older guys who buy you drinks."

You win some, you lose some.

"Seriously, though, a loner on the road makes a pretty big target," he leaned one elbow hard on the bar. He considered the condensation on his glass for a moment before shifting his gaze to her, "Oz says you're hot stuff, though, so maybe you don't worry about running into trouble."

"Ugh. Now there's a name I was hoping wouldn't come up," the girl pulled a face and sighed, finally taking a very long sip of her drink.

Qrow turned his glass in his hand, smirking at the memory of his last run in with his old Headmaster. "Gets on your case too, huh?"

"Might have been one of the reasons I left," the girl shrugged, returning to the bowl of peanuts. "And for the record," she spoke with surprising clarity around her crunching, "if you're the yearly envoy of choice sent to try and bring me back, the answer is still no."

"Bring you back? And have to deal with you on the way? I'll pass," Qrow ran his free hand through his hair, "I'm just here for the show. You're supposed to have some kind of magic or something, right? Or is it just a fancy semblance, and Oz is nuts? Wouldn't be surprised- he's been a little more out there than usual."

He'd told him a lot of stories... stories too crazy to be true. The four kingdoms, the Scorched Continent, black pools crawling with Grimm... nightmare stuff to go with the magic. Maybe some people believed the old man on faith, but Qrow needed to see these things for himself. He shifted, his cloak slipping off the handle of the sword at his back.

Despite her best efforts, the girl couldn't help but let out a short laugh, bright and clear for having found a kindred spirit of sorts. Anyone who was clear-headed enough to question Ozpin's sanity was immediately a friend in her books.

"You want a magic show then, is that it? Here," she reached over and grabbed Qrow's drink, pausing just long enough to wink at him, "the kids love this one."

Frost crept outwards from her fingertips, coating the glass in slow spiderweb patterns.

Qrow watched the patterns creep across the glass. He glanced back up without making a move to take the glass back, "Cute. But I've seen frosty semblance work before."

"Oh, pardon me, I didn't realize you were so worldly and experienced," she rolled her eyes, a smirk playing around the edges of her lips, "Is this more to your liking then?" Steam began to rise from the frost beneath her fingers, the once-intricate patterns melting away as the dark ale started to bubble. In seconds, Qrow's drink was boiling.

"Alright," Qrow drawled, leaning back from the bar, "so it's heat. You take it away, you put it back in. Still looks like a semblance to me," he added, nodding to his drink, "though I'd appreciate it if you didn't boil that all off."

"You really know how to take the fun out of magic," the girl released his drink, plopping her chin in her hand and arching a brow. Her other hand she clenched into a tight fist. "I've got one more though - my personal favorite."

With a flourished flick of her wrist, she released her fist and wiggled her fingers, small blue arcs of electricity dancing between them. "But wait, there's more-" quick as a flash, the girl reached up and combed her sparking fingers through Qrow's hair, flooding him with static electricity. "...t-..ta-daa," was all she managed to get out before dissolving into a fit of giggles.

Qrow laughed as she left him with his hair standing on end. _Crazy, but hey. I've seen crazier._ He tried to smooth it back down with middling success while he watched her snicker at the bar.

"Funny, but come on," he kept up his grin as he ascertained that the barkeeper was busy at the other end of the bar. He motioned to his hot drink, "I was under the impression that you had some kind of actual power. Is it just this small-time stuff, or what?"

Her laughter quieted down, the mirth in her brown eyes giving way to something more pensive. She reached for his drink once more, chilling it slowly to avoid cracking the glass. "I prefer the small-time stuff."

Qrow waited both for his drink to cool and for the girl to elaborate.

Unfortunately for him, the girl kept her silence, having slipped into what looked like a fairly deep train of thought. Eventually, she emerged long enough to flash an apologetic smile. "So, are you ever going to introduce yourself, or are we past that point?"

"Qrow," his smirk lingered at the corner of his mouth, "and you are?"

"Amber," the girl smiled back. She went to reach for her drink, but it wasn't there.

Gradually, all of the color seeped out of the walls, the ground, the people, her surroundings melting and shifting as they always did.

 _Amber..._

A lone tree stood singed and smoldering on an empty charred landscape, surrounded by the burning stumps of the remainder of the forest that had not escaped her destruction. Beneath her, a Goliath lay in a heap, slowly sifting away into ash. Amber stared in wide-eyed surprise at the man standing beneath the tree.

Her powers... when her control over them slipped, they never left anything living in their wake... and yet, there stood Qrow, right beneath the only tree that her electric maelstrom had somehow missed.

How long had he been following her?

Somehow, she didn't mind.

She flashed him a sad smile. His face said it all. Now he knew why she traveled alone.

 _...Amber?_

The walls surrounding Vale were more than impressive up close. Almost as impressive as her newfound traveling partner's ability to somehow survive being her traveling partner.

Amber tore her eyes away from the towering walls to look at Qrow. He was waiting for her at the city's gates.

How was it that her powers always missed him? Granted, lately she'd been missing enemies with alarming frequency as well. But with someone watching her back now... somehow, she didn't mind.

She followed him into the city.

 _Amber._

The city looked so small from this height. Gleaming silver gears hung overhead, spinning, endlessly spinning. How could he stand their incessant ticking? This was not where she wanted to be, this was not where she belonged... but she shook his hand anyway, a horrible sense of wrongness overcoming her when wary brown eyes met ancient bespectacled gold.

She made Qrow promise never to bring her here again.

By the light of the shattered moon, she left the city, alone.

 _Pyrrha..._

Amber woke, but only darkness greeted her now. How long had she been like this? Her consciousness waxing and waning... How long since that woman...

She could hear voices. Qrow. Amber seethed at his presence. Betrayer. Why had she ever listened to him? More voices... a girl? They'd brought a girl to see her... Why? Why couldn't she open her eyes? Why couldn't she warn the girl to run - run as far and as fast as she possibly could?

 _Pyrrha?_

Amber woke, her eyes finally opening, only to be blinded by pain. A familiar arrow protruded from her chest. At least she hadn't been shot in the back again.

Everyone was here, that woman, Ozpin, some blonde kid... and someone else... someone in her head... that is... which head was hers again? Deep brown eyes slid shut. It hardly mattered, she was so tired... maybe she would just sleep forever... surely nobody would mind...

"Pyrrha."

Emerald green eyes snapped open. Startled by the light touch of a hand to her shoulder, Pyrrha nearly toppled from her perch sitting atop the highest point of the stadium's walls, but she anchored herself with her javelin just in time.

The wind picked up, small sparks of nervous energy crackling between her fingertips. "Ren?..."

He stood beside her, looking at her the same way he always did, like he was just on the verge of asking something other than what he always asked, "...Nightmares again?"

She never knew how to answer. Fortunately, he never pressed.

"Ruby is looking for you."

Of course - the exact words she'd been hoping not to hear. Pyrrha leaned heavily on her weapon, excuses flitting about in her head, though none of them stood a chance against the simple hard fact that she couldn't avoid Ruby forever. "...Have her meet me here, then."

Ren nodded, turning to leave.

"And Ren..."

He turned back, his brow quirked.

"Thank you..."

His face briefly twisted in a sad half-smile, but he nodded once more and quietly dropped from the wall's edge.


	52. The Felled Maiden

**A/N: Hey all! So Fiercesomest probably already told you all about my trip, which I'll be leaving for next week! I fully expect to return by the month's end, hopefully unscathed by the mountains, and once I'm back posting will start back up as usual! Also I'll be in school again? ? Aaahahah ah. Yeah it's gonna be awesome. Also RWBY in October is happening. gOSH**

 **So anyway, thanks for being supremely patient and no worries, this is only a temporary hiatus for sure. RWBY and co will be back on their misadventures soon enough ;3**

 **ALSO a very HAPPY BIRTHDAY to one of our extreme-long-time readers The Unplanner!**

 **HUGS,**  
 **D**

* * *

Ren found Ruby and co just as they exited the maintenance tunnel, and in short order Ruby was off climbing the lopsided stairs to the rim of the coliseum. Weiss, meanwhile, found herself being 'escorted' back to the medical tent by Ruby's uncle, cursing the way she'd been outvoted by the others.

"This is ridiculous," Weiss grumbled, "Ruby shouldn't be climbing alone at night. She's your niece- you know how much of a klutz she is. She'll probably fall out into the Grimm infested woods."

"You're one to talk," Qrow's footsteps were heavy next to her, and a little uneven. He was drunk. "Practically asleep on your feet. In the middle of my story, no less."

"Shut up," they had spent weeks getting back here and as soon as they did Ruby went comatose trying to aura heal a dog. Weiss had better things to do than sleep, though it _was_ taking an inordinate amount of concentration to keep her footing in the dark.

Qrow stumbled into her.

"Hey!" Weiss snapped as his flailing arm knocked Myrtenaster from her belt. The sword clanged on the stony ground.

"Whoops," he stood between her and her weapon, his footing suddenly rock solid.

They hadn't reached the first tent yet, so it was dark and the air was still. The hair prickled up on the back of Weiss's neck as she faced Ruby's uncle, who suddenly didn't seem so much like a drunk old man. Her hand itched to form a glyph, but between her lack of sleep and aura sharing with Ruby… besides, this was Ruby's uncle. Ruby, who was gawky and reckless and wielded one of the most ridiculous, dangerous combat weapons she'd ever seen.

Weiss masked the sudden misgivings that thought brought on.

"By the way," the wiry, possibly not-so-drunk man came a step closer, casually cutting her off from her sword, "you heard the part about all those Atlas robots going haywire on us, right?" When he stood at his full height, he was a full head taller than Weiss.

Weiss stood her ground, noticing that his eyes were red, like Ruby's now. "Excuse me?"

Qrow held her gaze for a few beats, searching... for what? "A lot of your daddy's money went into those. You don't seem like the type to call home often, but if he comes looking for you..."

The heiress's eyes flickered to her sword, still out of reach, "If he comes looking for me, I'm going to find out _exactly_ what's going on here."

The faced each other a moment, until Qrow seemed satisfied. He shrugged.

"Just keep track of who the good guys are. And I don't necessarily mean me, if that's what you're worried about." he said, stooping to pick up her weapon. He gave it a deft twirl, spinning the chamber to check for dust, and offered it to her hilt first, "Just stick with Ruby. If you don't, I know where you live."

Weiss snatched her rapier from him. "Don't touch me or my weapon ever again."

"There's the old ice queen spirit," he chuckled.

She gripped her sword and kept a few extra feet of distance between herself and Ruby's uncle the rest of the way across the debris littered ground to the tents.

Qrow stopped before they reached the medical tent. "Stay out of trouble."

The heiress watched him turn and walk back off into the darkness, still bristling over the exchange and glad to see him leaving. She entered alone, squinting as her eyes adjusted to the lamplight.

Blake was at her side in an instant, amber eyes bright with worry. At Ren's request, the others had disbanded to their own tents to rest after Pyrrha's departure, leaving Blake alone in the medical tent with Jaune, Yang, and Robin. None of the three were currently awake, so she kept her voice low, "Weiss..." her eyes lingered on the tent opening behind the heiress, "...where is everyone else?"

"How should I know?" Weiss threw up her arms, "Ruby and her psychotic uncle decided that I-"

She noticed the others asleep in the cots at the edges of the tent. They were just sheets over bare cots, but they looked like the most luxurious beds in the world. Dust, even the ground looked comfortable at this point. She ran a hand over her face, grumbling, "... nevermind. They're somewhere, probably doing something stupid. Did anything happen here after we left?"

Blake shook her head, "Ren went to find you and everyone else went back to their tents to... rest..." she raised a brow at Weiss. The heiress looked positively dead on her feet. "Which... we should probably do as well."

Weiss shook her head, fussing with the cuffs of her coat sleeves, "You go ahead. I'll wait for Ruby."

"Weiss," Blake didn't move, "you should get some sleep."

"Don't tell me what to do," Weiss huffed with a little less vitriol than usual. She moved to shoulder past Blake and get to the map in the middle of the room. She would get a better look at the state Vale was in while she waited for Ruby to get back.

Blake dared to stop Weiss with a hand on her arm. "You're acting irrationally," she hissed, dipping her head to better look the stubborn heiress in the face, "I _know_ you haven't slept since we arrived."

Weiss stopped. She looked at Blake's hand on her coat sleeve.

"Did you also know that Pyrrha has a Grimm caged in the maintenance tunnels?" her eyes met Blake's briefly before she scowled at the walls of the tent, shrugging her arm to get Blake to let go, "Neptune is convinced it's his partner."

"You... you saw Sun?..." Blake's voice dropped to a harsh whisper, her grip on Weiss's coat loosening. She'd wondered where they'd taken him... if that really was him...

"I _saw_ a _Grimm_ ," Weiss repeated, her gaze hard as she barred memories of the black, clawed hands and red eyes she'd seen through the dark grate. She had more trouble with the older memories- the white bone over her partner's face. The blood red of her cloak. The flicker of the dark scythe in her hands.

Weiss clenched her fists as icy panic started to seep into her chest. The lamplight made the shadows waver against the canvas walls of the tent. She'd been regretting letting Ruby out of her sight all the way here, and now that anxiety came to a peak. She turned back towards the entrance, "I need to go find Ruby."

"Weiss," Blake snatched Weiss's hand, firmly holding her back. She pushed thoughts of Sun to the back of her mind in favor of dealing with the very real problem trying to stumble out into the night on her watch. "You need rest. What good are you to Ruby dead on your feet like this?"

Instead of pulling to get away, Weiss rounded on Blake so they were inches apart. She pointed at her chest with her captured hand as she hissed, "Her eyes are _red_. You would be doing _exactly_ the same thing if it was Yang."

Ears flat against her skull, it took a full moment for Blake to compose herself, feeling wildly irate after having to stamp down the nightmares of that other world - smoke, black fire, the bones sprouting from her partner's back... Blake shook her head. "Of course I would," she snarled back, staring Weiss dead in the eyes and finding a very familiar fear, "But in that scenario, _you_ would be the one stopping _me_ from being an idiot about it."

They stood like that for a second, locked in a contest of wills. Blake had been eating properly, though- as properly as one could out of what amounted to a refugee camp comprised entirely of ten or so teenagers- and had hours more sleep on Weiss.

Besides, she was right, and the logical part of Weiss knew it.

At last, the heiress let her hand drop, growling, "I'm not being an idiot."

Blake relaxed her grip as well, sensing Weiss's shift in mood. "Well good..." she cracked a half-smile, "Because we really don't need a Yang 2.0 on our hands," she glanced at the brawler, dead to the world on her cot, as she had been for almost three days now.

Releasing Weiss altogether, Blake loosely folded her arms, fixing the heiress with an almost pleading look. "If I promise to check up on Ruby, will you go get some sleep?"

Weiss tossed her hair a little and with a sleep-clumsy hand combed the stray strands that clung to her coat. Much to her chagrin, she was human and needed to rest. Mustering a last glare, she said, "Fine. If anything happens, I expect you to take full responsibility," she turned to lift the flap of canvas that served as the medical tent's door, "I'll be with our gear in the supply tent."

Blake nodded, waiting a moment before peering outside the tent after Weiss to make sure she was actually heading to the right tent... and she was. After taking another moment to confirm the three in the tent were still sleeping, she quietly set out into the night to find Ruby.

Weiss entered the dark supply tent, carefully making her way past boxes of ammunition and emergency rations to the pile of sleeping bags and extra blankets they'd used for Ruby's bed. She growled at herself under her breath for letting Blake talk her into trying to rest. Obviously she wasn't going to be able to. Ruby would be back any minute, probably.

She activated Myrtenaster's Dust chamber, casting a pale blue light over the tangle of bedding so she could see to straighten it out.

Fatigue dogged her as she smoothed the last wrinkles out of the sleeping bag and she arranged herself on top of it, still in her coat and boots and gloves. There was no sense in taking them off. It was freezing, and she'd be up again soon anyway. She lay on her side, watching the light fade from her deactivated sword.

The darkness crept in, and with it came a heavy dread. It worked its icy fingers into her chest. Weiss's hand strayed to the place on her shoulder, near her neck, where she'd been bitten. There was no pain. There hadn't been then either, as the cold crept in on her, her breath and the shift of settling ice the only sound in her ears.

The smell of Ruby's hair lingered on the fabric of the makeshift pillow. Weiss breathed it and gripped the spot on her shoulder and told herself she wasn't alone as the dark caught up with her and she slid slowly into a fitful sleep.

Unbeknownst to her, a pair of mismatched eyes watched from among the stacks of motley supplies.

* * *

Ruby levered herself up to the rim of the coliseum. Up this high, the wind played with her hair and her cloak, snatched at her breath. She tugged the shoulder of her cloak a little closer around herself as she picked her way across the sloped sheet metal to where Pyrrha sat.

"Hey," she greeted her friend, straightening up and scooting over to sit with her. The forest beyond the walls was a sea of black. The smoke from Vale blotted out the stars- at least the ones that weren't already blotted by the remains of the clouds from that freak storm earlier... which according to her uncle hadn't been a freak storm at all.

Pyrrha barely masked her surprise behind a gentle smile. Looking Ruby in the eyes was... difficult, to say the least. Not because of her new eye color eerily matching her namesake, but for the hint of trepidation she caught in the younger girl's tone. "I... heard you were looking for me?"

Ruby suddenly wasn't sure of what to do with her hands. She rubbed the back of her neck.

"Yeah, I kind of was, huh?" What could she even say? Unfortunately, she'd already opened her mouth and words were coming out, "So... I hear you've got superpowers now. I mean, um, more super than polarity? Which is still really cool."

Turning her head with a small huff of laughter, Pyrrha rested her chin on her free hand. "Superpowers? Is that what he calls it now?" Her gaze traveled to the night sky, frowning for the stars still partially obscured by the smoke that seemed to rise endlessly from the ruins of Vale. "What did he tell you?"

Ruby sat with her legs over the edge of the wall, dangling in the open air.

"He told us about Amber," she fidgeted with her hands. Her uncle had told her and Weiss a lot of stuff. She's got two auras now, he'd said. Two souls. Something along those lines. The Atlas tech specialists hadn't been sure of what would happen when they set this up. Pyrrha still seemed like Pyrrha to Ruby, though. At least she did now, sitting with her on top of the coliseum wall after a long day.

A wry smile briefly pulled at Pyrrha's lips. "What a terrible old man... Didn't even let me tell you my own story." She sighed, leaning back and pulling her javelin close. She wondered if this meant Weiss had been there to hear things as well.

"No one else knows," she said quietly, eyes lingering in a sidelong glance at Ruby, "Except..." Pyrrha shook her head and took a deep breath, her shoulders drooping heavily as she exhaled. "Except Jaune."

Ruby bit her lip and brought Crescent Rose around to her lap. She found the chips in her red paint job with her fingertips, "I'll listen too, if you want."

Silence fell between the two as Pyrrha watched Ruby for a long while. In the end, she covered her eyes with her hand in a failed attempt to hide her embarrassment. "All this time to prepare and I still don't know where to start..."

"How about that giant Grimm we fought?" Ruby asked. It felt like ages ago, fighting the eyeless monster on the top of the cliffs. That wasn't too far in the past, but she would definitely like to know where it came from. She couldn't help but think of the Grimm Rat King- that had been some time ago, but still. You didn't see Grimm that big every day.

Pyrrha's pained look of embarrassment shifted to one of surprise, which then fractured, a smile blossoming in its stead. "You ask me about the one thing I know next to nothing about," she laughed lightly, shaking her head. The others had told her about their sightings of it. "I never saw it up close, myself. All I know is that it appeared..." she paused, trying to pin down a timeline, but smoke had blotted out the sky for so many days... "...Sometime after the attack."

Ruby scooted a little closer. She had brightened when Pyrrha had laughed, but now she quieted. "... and what happened to Sun?"

The temperature around them dropped, leaving the breath between them visible as Pyrrha tried to find her voice. She gripped her weapon a little too hard. "Cinder," she eventually said as evenly as she was able. An uncomfortable heat rose in Pyrrha's chest. "Cinder happened."

 _The arrow gleamed like black glass in the sickly green light of the vault beneath Beacon's tower._

"Cinder?" Ruby frowned, trying to remember stuff about the dark-haired woman. She remembered her gold eyes, and her voice from when she'd first run into the new student in the dorm hallways. Or at least she'd thought Cinder was new.

 _Visiting from Haven, actually._

That was the only time Ruby recalled talking with her. The wind picked up, snatching at the edges of her cloak, "Wasn't she one of Emerald's teammates?"

One of Pyrrha's hands left her weapon, closing instead just over her heart. "I don't know who... or what she was." Her chest still ached where the arrow had pierced... her? Amber? She shook her head. "Somehow, she knew exactly where to find us… Did you know there's a vault hidden beneath the school? That's where they were holding Amber..." Shame still nipped at her heels for having agreed to go through with something so... unnatural. Head dipped, Pyrrha looked at Ruby through her lashes. "Did your uncle tell you about that..." the hand over her chest unclenched and clenched again as she searched for the right phrase, "...experimental technology?"

"Not really," Ruby kicked her feet a little. "Just that it was from Atlas."

His face had darkened, though, like Zwei had gotten kicked and he knew who was to blame.

Pyrrha's face darkened similarly. "They didn't tell me much either. Just that it would... transfer Amber to me somehow," she laughed low, unable to keep from sounding bitter, "but we were interrupted. Halfway through, Cinder appeared and..." Pyrrha's hands clenched into fists, twitching at the muscle memory of feeling a brand new extension of her aura, a new extension of _herself_ , ripped to pieces in a single excruciating instant. "She killed her."

* * *

 _The vast row of Dust-green lamps set high in the wall to illuminate the length of the vault went out, as if extinguished by the maiden's last breath._

 _The rising hum of sheer, unadulterated power filled the air and flickers of firelight seemingly lifted the murderer's feet from the floor. Her bow gleamed black in her hand. Her eyes shone with fire._

 _"Stay back!" came Ozpin's shout as Jaune flung himself at Cinder, sword and white shield at the ready._

 _They did exactly that - though it took Pyrrha throwing down a wave of magnetism and dragging Jaune back by his sword and shield. She felt Cinder's eyes burning holes into her back as they fled. Part of Amber, and by proxy Amber's power, resided in each of them now, and Pyrrha knew she had to get Jaune to safety in case that woman came to finish the job. She had no idea how long Ozpin would be able to hold her off._

 _Fire and rockets and neon-green beams of light flared and flashed in the distance as Pyrrha pleaded with Jaune - stop Penny, protect the city, protect the innocent civilians of Vale. While he did that - she would go back to help Ozpin._

 _It was the most heroic she'd ever seen him, sword drawn, the setting sunlight catching the edges of his armor as he rushed off towards the airship docks._

 _Light no longer poured from Beacon's tower. Ozpin was nowhere to be found, but Pyrrha could feel Cinder somewhere high above. The tower creaked and groaned - a Grimm dragon had coiled around it. Cinder's silhouette stood unmoving, watching her from the dragon's back._

 _Pyrrha saw little sense in keeping her waiting._

 _The frigid air at the tower's top bit into her lungs, despite the fires rampaging through the school and fairgrounds below._

 _In past tournaments, Pyrrha occasionally crossed swords with an opponent who actually presented a fair challenge... but this was the first battle where she felt pushed to her very limits. A foreign power bubbled beneath Pyrrha's skin, restless to aid her, but the small frail force proved to be a mere fraction of what Cinder started throwing at her._

 _Searing fire, arcs of electricity, blustering winds that changed direction in an instant - wielded with the wild abandon of someone who had nothing to lose and everything to gain. Coupled with Cinder's glass - endless, endless shards of glass - it was only technique, the piles of scrap metal from Ozpin's shattered tower, and sheer force of will that kept Pyrrha on equal footing._

 _Of course, equal footing meant nothing when the opposition cheated._

 _Cinder's glass arrow should have been the end of her- its head and shaft alike shattering upon meeting her shield mid-throw, then reforming and continuing its trajectory as if nothing had ever been in its way- that is, until a familiar figured flipped onto the scene, deftly snatching the arrow right out of the air._

 _Sun, grinning a mile wide._

 _A bright pink barrier flashed to life around them both. Ren leaped into view and landed beside Pyrrha, pink eyes flashing as Cinder's wicked arcs of lightning lashed against his wall of aura._

 _Following shortly behind him, Velvet and Coco crested the tower's edge, flashing her smiles as they gunned for Cinder in tandem._

 _Pyrrha didn't even need Ren's brief explanation to know - Jaune had sent them. She had never felt so grateful._

 _Together they held Cinder back, wore her down, and chased her when she fled, weakened, up to the coliseum, pushed her to her very limits._

 _Those limits, however, proved to be unfathomably cruel._

 _Cinder finally fell, held against the broken floor of the grounded coliseum under threat of the point of Pyrrha's spear. The others looked on as she hesitated. Hands that had so swiftly destroyed countless Grimm shook at the prospect of ending a human_ _life._

 _In Pyrrha's moment of indecision, Cinder's eyes clouded over, inky blackness overtaking burning gold in a matter of seconds. A voice that did not belong whispered in Pyrrha's ear._

 _Ashes to ashes..._

 _Cinder was smiling. Could she hear it too?_

 _Dust to dust..._

 _The inky blackness exploded out of Cinder without warning, dripping arcs striking and swirling around everyone present. Blinding pain lanced through Pyrrha's body, her skin burned, her eyes felt like they were about to burst, her very aura twisted and writhed, but worst of all were the anguished screams of her classmates - her friends. In her final moment of clarity, she made her choice._

* * *

Tears welled at the corners of Pyrrha's eyes. "Cinder killed her. And I..." Her voice cracked, and with it went her composure. Tentatively, she reached out and grasped Ruby's hand, looking imploringly at the younger girl as the tears she'd been holding back since that night finally streamed freely down her face. "I killed Cinder."

Ruby took her friend's hand in both of hers and just held on. She tried to swallow.

People had died. A lot of people. At James Point, at Beacon. Had Ozpin? Had Professor Goodwitch, even? Between her uncle's story and Pyrrha's, everything was pretty wrecked. She tried to match the time this had been happening to what had happened on their away mission. No wonder their messages hadn't been going through. No wonder the robots that showed up were crazy.

That had been weeks ago, before they left the valley for their winter trek through the mountains.

"Pyrrha," she managed, trying to support her through the sheer grip on her hands. The taller girl looked like she was being crushed by the weight of it all, "have you talked to the others about any of this?"

Pyrrha bowed her head, wrestling her voice under just enough control to answer, "Ren. Only Ren... which means Nora probably knows as well." Her halfhearted laugh dissolved into jagged hiccups, which she took a second to wrestle under control as well.

"He was there when Cinder..." Pyrrha shook her head, drawing strength from Ruby's grip on her hands, "I don't know what she did to us. She hit us with… _something_ , and... Thankfully, Ren seems unharmed, but... you saw what happened to Sun." Pyrrha shifted her gaze, green eyes searching the distant horizon beyond the crumbling stadium wall. "Coco and Velvet are still out there..."

Ruby stared out at the dark swath of forest. Velvet and Coco were... whatever Sun was? The memory of the cold, metal clash of Sun- their friend- snarling and shaking the metal grate down in the dark maintenance corridors made her blood run cold. Cinder, the student from Haven, turned into a bunch of black stuff? Did it have anything to do with the huge Grimm they'd been seeing- the blind Beowolf and the Deathstalker they'd avoided?

"They're... sorry, Pyrrha, I just..." Ruby felt tears prickle at the corner of her eyes. After everything that had happened on their end, after the Liliac swarm, and Weiss getting hurt, and the whole town turning on them... this was so much worse. Maybe not worse, but bigger. Crying wasn't going to help anyone, though, so she took a deep breath. "It's just a lot. Are any of the professors...? And what about Vale?"

A little below the horizon, they could see the red glow from still burning fires. The smoke still blotted out a wide stripe of stars.

Pyrrha shook her head, pulling one of her hands away to scrub at her eyes, "I'm sorry, Ruby, I'm not..." she paused, raising her head and looking to the horizon.

A low hum drifted through the air.

"Oh no." Still holding Ruby's hands, Pyrrha slowly got to her feet, using their vantage point to scan the skies.

A small airship dipped below the haze of smoke at Vale's farthest edge.

The orange glow from the smoldering fires below reflected off its hull. By the time Ruby got Crescent Rose's scope up, the ship had vanished behind the buildings.

She leapt up, circling her weapon back into its compact form, "They might need help."

Slowly shaking her head, Pyrrha lifted her arm, gently barring Ruby's path, her face twisting into a grimace as an all-too-familiar unearthly roar split the skies.

Far too silently for something of its size, a massive dark form dropped from the clouds to the ground and reared back. A Grimm Dragon, larger even than a Goliath, towering over the city ruins with its mouth open wide in a nightmare smile of jagged teeth that stretched straight down its long spined neck.

Pyrrha had to look away.

Ruby's mouth hung partway open as the Grimm plucked the fallen airship from the rubble and devoured it in a few swift bites. The creature's teeth tore through the metal effortlessly. At this distance, it was like watching a silent film of someone eating a burrito with the foil wrapper still on, but in this case the foil was reinforced steel and the burrito was probably some people inside the ship.

The thought of the horrible death of those survivors galvanized the feeling already taking root in her chest. The feeling that fighting that giant, flying, neck-fanged Grimm would be _awesome_.

"Pyrrha," Ruby's hands moved on their own to adjust her weapon and chamber a round. "Let's go kill it."

Pyrrha blinked. She almost laughed- she had truly missed Ruby's particular brand of enthusiasm. The Grimm took to the skies once more, slipping back into the smoky haze blanketing the city. Nevertheless, a smile cracked Pyrrha's face as turned to look at the smaller girl standing as tall and fierce as an Alpha Beowolf. "I would love to... but, I doubt I'd be able to make it."

Ruby took her eyes away from the black sky where the Grimm had disappeared and looked at her friend. She noticed how beat up Pyrrha looked- her pieced together armor, the circles under her eyes. Ruby probably looked pretty beat up herself after making it through the mountains. Still, that Grimm was so _big_.

"We could," she put Crescent Rose away, though her hands were reluctant to leave the metal at her back. She used her shoulder to nudge Pyrrha's arm, "Unless you mean 'make it' as in 'make it over there before it flies away' because..." she motioned to the night sky, unable to keep her shoulders from slumping a bit, "... well... it did kind of fly away."

Pyrrha hadn't meant either of those things. She absentmindedly rubbed her arm where Ruby had nudged her.

Ruby searched her friend's face, noticing the way Pyrrha avoided her eyes.

"Want to stay up here a little longer?" She sat back down on the edge of the wall so Pyrrha would have space to talk if she wanted. Ruby sat back and stretched her legs out over the drop off, tilting her head to the small glow of the fire far down behind them, "Everyone's probably just sleeping down in camp."

Pyrrha rubbed the back of her neck, where her makeshift armor was the most bent out of shape. It almost seemed like she hadn't heard Ruby, until she finally sighed and put on a smile. "We should probably head back... I'd like to check on Jaune."

"Yeah," Ruby grimaced as she hopped back up. She was pretty tired, and she'd been gone a while- Weiss was probably throwing a fit. "So... Jaune's been like that since the fight with Cinder...?"

She was still turning the events over in her mind. Had the black stuff Cinder shot out had something to do with her semblance? A knot in her stomach told her it was probably something worse. Pyrrha had fairytale good-guy magic (that she was not going to beg her to show off right now), so there was probably bad-guy magic out there too. And that's probably what Cinder had used.

The knot tightened and her mood dropped because all this had happened and she'd _missed_ it. She hadn't been able to even help.

Magnetically pulling her shield and javelin to rest across her back, Pyrrha beckoned Ruby to follow her. "I'm... actually not certain. All I know is what Ren has told me." She chose her steps down the narrow path of broken concrete with practiced care. All of the metal rebar had already been meticulously bent out of the way. "Apparently... he tried to heal me..." she glanced back at Ruby, "the way Weiss healed you."

So he'd been okay in the Vault, but afterwards... Ruby hopped and balanced her way down behind her, "He just... didn't wake up?"

Pyrrha returned her eyes to the path. "That's right. No doubt because I was... much farther gone when he attempted it." If she understood what Ren had told her, she'd been closer to the state Sun was currently in. That thought made her stomach turn, but the most she could remember after the oily darkness had overtaken her was... chaos.

The temperature around them began to drop, but Pyrrha paid no mind. "Reckless," she huffed, but there was no room for anger past the sheer regret, "He had no idea what he was doing but he did it anyway and... We're not sure what it's done to him."

Ruby swallowed, stepping carefully on the wrecked metal and concrete of the walls. Much farther gone. Much farther gone than when?

Reflecting on bad times didn't take up much of Ruby's days. Things could always get better, and if she focused on the bad she might not be able to move forward. Pyrrha's words brought back a lot of bad memories, though. She remembered seeing red. She remembered her hands closing around her partner's throat. Everyone had told her that her eyes were red now. She stopped walking.

"This is like that poison," she looked up at Pyrrha, "From the Grimm rats?"

Pyrrha stopped as well. Slowly, she turned to face Ruby, searching the younger girl's eyes. "You came to the same conclusion I did, then." Not that she was certain, but the symptoms matched alarmingly well.

"If it is, we can aura heal them, right?" Ruby knew Pyrrha had to have thought of that if she'd thought of the poison. Last time it had been her and Ren and Yang, and their combat partners had risked their lives- and possibly their souls- to help them. The logistics were hazy. Weiss and Blake didn't really talk much about what had happened beforehand. Even Nora had a tendency to change the subject to crazy dreams, or fighting Grimm. "I guess... did you already try?"

Pyrrha bowed her head. "...I did."

Ruby's cloak shifted a little in the soft breeze that snuck down past the high walls. "We should get back."

She would have to talk to the others about aura healing.

Pyrrha nodded and allowed Ruby to pass her on the path. She watched Ruby's back, her hands idly rubbing over the patchwork metal covering her arms. Head still bowed, Pyrrha followed Ruby back down the wall.


	53. Mystery Meat

**A/N: Aw yeah guess who's back from the mountains and DIDN'T get eaten by a bear? I'll give you a hint it's ME. We might have had to flee from forest fires though. If it's not one thing it's another, right?**

 **Still all in all fabulous trip, 10/10, would recommend, maybe while carrying less weight. 45 pounds is maybe a little too much. (haha no my toes aren't still numb what are you talking about, sob)**

 **So yeah it's good to be back :3 Let's jump right in! Enjoy the chapter!**

 **HUGS,  
D**

* * *

Ruby let the heavy canvas flap of the supply tent fall shut behind her. She'd left Pyrrha in the medical tent. It had been quiet over there- Yang slept like a rock with Robin snuggled up to her. The little Faunus's ears hadn't even twitched when she and Pyrrha had gone in. Jaune was still on his cot, the blanket pulled up to his chest. He could have just been sleeping. Blake wasn't around, but she'd probably gone to sleep in a different tent or something.

So Ruby dragged her feet back to the supply tent. Crescent Rose felt like a lead weight at her back. James Point, and now Beacon. And Vale. That ship... had it been full of people? What had happened to the evacuees? There were people counting on them back in the mountains- Cyan and Curtis and the townspeople. They'd promised to send help, but with Beacon in ruins it looked like there wasn't any to send.

How was she going to fix any of this? How could she even start?

Heaving a long sigh, she decided she could at least get some sleep, and in the morning have breakfast. Those were good goals, and maybe the next step would be easier after those. She felt her way in the quiet dark down the narrow path between the boxes and stuff littering the floor over to where her sleeping bag was laid out, only to stumble on top of something warm.

"Ack!" she squeaked, too off balance to do anything but bear her weight down on the flailing other person. The clash of steel against some other metal junk pricked Ruby's senses and she scrambled to get back before a weapon came into play, "It's me!"

"Ruby?" the dark retreated as Weiss activated her rapier's Dust chambers. She stared at her partner, her eyes bleary and her brow furrowed.

"Sorry, yeah, I'm sorry," Ruby tried to extricate herself from the tangle of limbs and her cloak.

"No, I should've- I was just-" Weiss pulled back, flustered and rubbing her eyes. "Did you want to sleep?"

"Yeah..." Ruby trailed off as her stomach gave a painful growl. She clapped a hand to it, grimacing. "Actually, I... haven't eaten anything."

Weiss looked at her like she'd just said that she'd forgotten to breathe, but then her stomach echoed Ruby's.

Ruby raised her brow. "Have you?"

"Shut up," Weiss grumbled and turned to the corner of the tent to dig in what looked like one of their supply boxes. The sounds of their gear shifting seemed loud in the small, dark space. The walls of the tent muted the lonely sounds of the wind outside. "Ugh, are we really going to do this again?"

"Do what aga- oh. Uh," Ruby looked over Weiss's shoulder at the three cans of baked beans- aka misery incarnate- that had made it back with them from James Point. Ruby sank down till she was lying on her face on one of their backpacks. She groaned into the fabric, "Maybe we can just go to sleep instead."

A winter-chilled breeze swirled low through the campgrounds, curling through the dust gathered at the bottom of the fallen coliseum and lightly tousling the closed flap of the medical tent.

* * *

The barely-audible scraping of fabric over the ground gave Pyrrha something to focus on other than the person lying prone before her. Jaune's chest rose and fell in slow, shallow breaths, just enough to presume he was still alive, somehow, despite having been otherwise motionless on this cot for weeks. That ever-present lead weighted guilt guided Pyrrha to kneel beside his cot.

"Jaune," she whispered, mindful of Yang and the small Faunus girl sleeping soundly just a few feet away. "I know you can hear me..." she took one of his hands in both of hers, resting her arms and head on the cot's edge, "...is what I want to say... But I'm starting to wonder if you can sense me at all."

In an attempt to focus, Pyrrha let her eyes fall shut, quietly gathering her aura as Nora and Ren had taught her. The two had gone to great lengths to help her learn the technique. It hadn't been easy, but with practice she'd eventually been able to briefly connect with Ren, and later Nora. Her success rate with Jaune however...

A soft red-gold glow rose around her as it always did, gently reaching out, searching. But, even with Jaune's hand clasped tightly in her own, his aura refused to respond. It roiled white-hot against her fingertips, somehow solid and unyielding despite writhing in turmoil wherever she tried to connect. After a particularly nasty shock, Pyrrha reflexively released his hand and pushed herself to her feet again. She grit her teeth, turning her back to Jaune so she wouldn't have to keep looking at barely-living proof her failures. Why did she think she'd be able to reach him this time when every other attempt hadn't worked either? She felt stupid for even trying.

"Pyrrha?"

Emerald eyes snapped to the medical tent's entrance. Ren stood just inside, with the flap held open over his head for Blake who followed close behind. How long had they been there?

"Blake is looking for Ruby," Ren said, the sympathy in his eyes telling Pyrrha that he'd seen more than she would have liked.

"He said you might know where she went," Blake added, her Faunus ears perked with hope.

A beat of silence passed, then Pyrrha managed a smile. "Then, you're in luck. She went to the storage tent to sleep."

Blake smiled right back, "Thanks." Sparing a lingering glance at Yang's peacefully sleeping form, Blake nodded to Ren and Pyrrha and vanished out the exit, leaving the medical tent in silence once more.

Pyrrha's smile faded as Ren crossed the tent to stand beside her. She watched him rest a hand on Jaune's chest, using the other to gently lift one of his eyelids open. Burning red stared back up at them both, though there was still a hint of Jaune's former blue lacing the innermost circle of his iris.

"Why can't I reach him," Pyrrha whispered half to herself.

Ren gave her a measured look. He let Jaune's eye fall back shut, resting that hand on Pyrrha's shoulder instead. The tension radiating from her rivaled the tension he felt in Jaune. "I don't know."

Toxic doubts clouded Pyrrha's mind, none of which she could bring herself to voice. Maybe Jaune was angry with her. He had to know she'd killed someone. He probably regretted saving her. He had to be disgusted with her. He _hated_ her.

Forcing herself to look away, Pyrrha's eyes happened across that strange cane leaning against the crate holding their map of Vale. She vaguely recalled Qrow having it in hand... giving it to Ruby... Her face darkened at the thought of that man... but how much of that ire was Amber's? It was getting harder and harder to tell where Amber's feelings ended and hers began...

"...Ren?" She glanced at him, embarrassed to find he'd been watching her the entire time - always with that patient expression. "I'd like to ask you and Nora a favor."

* * *

Ruby was still lying on her face on her backpack, her cloak a puddle of ragged cloth draped across her sleeping bag and legs when Blake came in through the tent flap. Weiss gazed at the can of baked beans with a glazed look, as if trying to decide whether opening the can would be any better than starving.

Neither of them had noticed the small stack of packaged crackers stacked on the edge of one of the supply crates behind them.

Neither of them had noticed Blake either, giving her a chance to fully take in the scene before her... and shake her head with a smile. Ren had asked if she'd be willing to help gather provisions for the camp. Now she could see why.

Stepping into the low lamplight, Blake crouched down and removed the offending can of beans from Weiss's line of sight, rolling it off into one of the tent's darkened corners. "So... either of you feel up to going on a hunt with me?"

Ruby propped herself up on her elbows at the sound of Blake's voice, swiping her hair out of her bleary eyes, "Now?"

Weiss, who had gotten approximately twenty minutes of sleep, looked at Blake like she might either strangle her or cry.

Blake blinked. The pair looked like death warmed over to slightly different degrees. She'd be better off taking a drunken /Nora/ along. "I was kidding," she immediately backpedaled, gently coaxing Ruby back onto her sleeping bag and tucking the ends of her red cloak around her. "But I'm not sure how long it will take, so no stressing if tomorrow morning rolls around and I'm not back yet," she looked pointedly at Weiss, as if she could somehow will her to relax.

The heiress looked down at Ruby, who wore a confused look as she fussed with the ends of her cloak and tried to sit back up. She looked at the corner where Blake had rolled the can of baked beans.

"Blake," Weiss said, her hands shaky, even resting on Myrtenaster. She wasn't actually going to start sobbing or anything, but it had been, what, two days? Three? Since she'd slept, and the last time she remembered eating was... was it the night before? Her throat closed, leaving her unable to communicate the sheer extent of what she needed.

Ruby hadn't eaten since she'd lost consciousness. Maybe Weiss's aura healing had given her a few hours' boost, but her hunger felt like someone had punched her in the stomach. She clutched at it, groaning, "We kind of need to eat something now. Like... before you go hunting."

One of Blake's ears twitched in amusement, but sympathy kept her expression in check. How was it that she of all people had been the only one on their team to maintain some semblance of good health? Ruby and Weiss both looked about ready to drop, but Blake knew all too well how horrible it felt to sleep on an empty stomach.

Pushing herself to her feet, Blake maneuvered around Weiss to investigate the crate that held the pack of crackers she'd spotted earlier. Her eyes cut through the darkness to catch sight of a fair sized tin of... something meaty sitting on the ground behind that same crate. It was already open, but it still smelled good... or, at least, better than beans. She tossed the crackers to Weiss and the mystery tin to Ruby. "Think this will hold you?"

"What- where did-" Weiss stared at the package of crackers. They looked like the cheddar and peanut butter kind you could get from a vending machine.

Ruby's mouth filled with drool the second the tin was in her hands. It was some kind of processed indestructible meat product, and beyond that she didn't care.

Weiss noticed her wolfing down the unidentified meat and balked, "Ugh, was that open?" She tried to grapple the tin from Ruby, which she succeeded in doing without much trouble as the container was already empty. She shook it at Blake, "Are you trying to poison her?"

"Hey, I'm not poisoned," Ruby protested, pushing Weiss's arm out of the way to climb over the crate where Blake found the food. She peered into the shadows, looking for a second stash of crackers or something, but the crate itself was just full of old radio equipment. "Where did you even find that?"

Blake shrugged, "The floor. Probably someone's snack stash." She skirted around Ruby and Weiss to reach the tent's entrance. "I plan on bringing back something a bit more substantial though." At least, she hoped she would.

Ruby sat back, disappointed that the stash hadn't been bigger, just in time to see Blake slip out of the tent. "She's really going?"

She wasn't going to stop Blake, of course. Blake had hunted all the way back here from James Point, and if she wanted to hunt, she could hunt. It was odd to choose to go out now, though. There were a lot of Grimm around. They were still figuring out what had even happened. More like the /why/ of it happening. Cinder being evil and the Atlas robots all going crazy and a ton of Grimm attacking the city... that was pretty well established in Ruby's mind.

Weiss fussed with the package of crackers, grumbling as she struggled to get the plastic open with her fingers stiff from cold and sleep, "As long as she doesn't get herself killed."

"Yeah," fatigue settled back over Ruby's shoulders. She shrugged her cloak around herself a little better, sitting next to her partner in the dim light. She could see dark circles around the heiress's eyes, way worse than they'd been during the sled trek to get here. Odds were she hadn't been sleeping. In fact, she /definitely/ hadn't been sleeping if she and Uncle Qrow had been able to convince her to go back to the tents. Ruby shifted a little so her elbow brushed Weiss's. "It doesn't feel the same."

Weiss lowered the package of crackers, darting Ruby a look, "What are you talking about?"

"I mean, we saw Sun, right?" Ruby bit her lip as Weiss bristled. She shifted tack, "That time... with the Grimm rats, I mean. I don't know why my eyes look weird, but it doesn't feel like it did that time. And I woke up fine, right?"

The fencer didn't say anything for a few beats. Her gaze dropped to the food in her hands. "You want me to stop."

She meant 'stop aura healing', and Ruby's words caught in her throat for a second. She leaned a little more into Weiss's shoulder, "I was just thinking we should both rest. We'll kind of all be in big trouble if you get too tired. Remember last time?"

Weiss huffed, "That was a fluke."

Next time she wouldn't give those bats a chance to get so close. If there was a next time. (Hopefully there wouldn't be.)

Ruby let Weiss think it over for a minute. Probably she was weighing the benefits of sleep against the disaster the rest of them would probably get into if she was too tired to stop them. Ruby motioned to the crackers, "Do you want me to open that?"

"No," Weiss held them out of reach. "Honestly, I can open a cheap package of food."

She ended up using Myrtenaster's edge to get it started. They shared the crackers, eating in silence for a few minutes.

"We should rest," Weiss allowed at last.

"That sounds great," Ruby brushed crumbs from her shirt and wrestled her combat boots off. Without the imminent threat of Grimm, they could sleep in relative luxury, which meant having a tent and not wearing shoes inside the sleeping bag.

Weiss searched Ruby, as if looking for any sign that she might have poison in her system, before following suit. "Wake me up if anything happens, or if you start feeling strange."

"Will do," Ruby snuggled down, facing the entrance of the tent. Crescent Rose and her boots lined up next to her side of the sleeping bag and blankets.

"If you don't wake up in the morning, I'm going to kill you," Weiss lay facing the other way, her back to Ruby, "Just so you know."

"Okay," Ruby yawned, already half asleep, "Just shake me or something first before you do anything really stabby."

Weiss let the light fade from her sword and lay there a few moments, listening to Ruby's breath even out. Before long, she was sleeping just as soundly.

* * *

Blake barely got ten feet from the tent's opening before she stopped again. There was another package of crackers outside. It lay on the ground a few feet away in the direction of the main gates, aka the way Blake would have to go to go out hunting. It was the same brand- a weird sour cream and onion flavored vending machine snack.

Blake openly stared at the surprise snack, torn between confusion and paranoia. Those had not been there a few minutes earlier... but, it could just be that someone had dropped them while passing by. Possibly Nora or Fox... Still, something about the small pack of crackers was unsettling enough that Blake kept her eyes and ears on high alert as she continued on her way... Only to catch sight of another pack of crackers... and another... and yet another... A literal trail of them led off to the eastern edge of the coliseum wall, ending in a huge pile of scrap sitting just beside the entrance to the maintenance tunnels.

If Blake's paranoia had been a snarling Beowolf before, it was now a raging Goliath. Her rational side told her there was no one at this camp other than people she knew... and that one girl she hadn't met yet. But why would anyone leave a trail of crackers? Her paranoia screamed TRAP, but honestly it was probably just... a prank, or someone having fun... Not that anyone here seemed in high enough spirits for something like that...

Blake eyed the medical tent. Perhaps Robin was playing a game?... She took a small detour to check, finding both Yang and Robin out cold, just as she'd left them. Pyrrha and Ren were nowhere to be seen either. She could just leave the crackers... it was probably nothing... but on the off chance it was something...

Biting her lip, Blake gently shook Yang's shoulder.

"Mnh... h-wha... Blake?"

"Yang. I'm going to investigate a trail of crackers."

"...okay?"

"If I'm walking into a trap, avenge me."

"...'kay."

Blake could tell Yang was barely half-awake at best, but the sleepy smile and thumbs up from her partner was enough to sate her rampant paranoia. She clasped Yang's hand for a moment, giving it a light squeeze before turning and heading back out into the night.


	54. Mystery Meet

**A/N: Hey all! We live! Sorry about that unexpected break, you can blame that lovely Hurricane for punching poor Florida in the face and thieving my electricity for _days._ Thankfully, it's back now, and so are we! YAY!**

 **Hugs,**  
 **D**

* * *

 _"If I'm walking into a trap, avenge me."_

 _"...'kay."_

 _Blake could tell Yang was barely half-awake at best, but the sleepy smile and thumbs up from her partner was enough to sate her rampant paranoia. She clasped Yang's hand for a moment, giving it a light squeeze before turning and heading back out into the night._

Frowning, Blake drew her sword and made a beeline for the cracker packs. She left them on the ground as she passed them by, one by one, until finally... she made it to a pile of twisted scrap - a heaping mess of technical panels and strange mechanical parts that she couldn't quite place. The upper half of a vending machine peeked out the top. The glass was cracked wide open, but it was still filled with wrapped, perfectly edible snacks of all kinds. Though, someone had cleaned out nearly the entire bottom row, where one solitary pack of crackers remained.

It was easy to see how the others had missed it- one of the large panels leaned against it, making it invisible from the direction of the camp. But how had the trail been laid?

The wind moaned softly across the top of the coliseum. It barely stirred the dust at ground level. Nothing else moved and there was no other sound.

At first, the silence set Blake even further on edge... but the longer nothing happened, the more her white-knuckled grip on her sword loosened. Eventually, she sighed, and sheathed her sword. This was stupid. She was going to go hunt.

As she turned to go, there was a small throat-clearing noise from the edge of the junk heap.

A girl had appeared seemingly out of nowhere. Her hair fell in two colors over her shoulder- the pink showing lighter in the dimness. She had a cautious look in her different colored eyes, her once white jacket was stained and torn, and she held a big cardboard sign that said 'TRUCE' in thick black marker.

Both of Blake's swords were in hand in less than a second, amber eyes blown wide at the girl standing before her. Neo. Roman Torchwick's lackey. The diminutive girl who had single-handedly shattered Yang's confidence for weeks. Blake bristled in secondhand anger... but Yang's description of the smaller girl's reactionary fighting style kept her from making any sudden moves. The sign was... also very odd. The girl Yang described would never ask for a truce... Unless... "You know you're outnumbered... don't you?"

A flicker of tired surprise crossed Neo's face and her gaze skirted Blake's, as if she were looking for the others present who were outnumbering her. Either that, or she genuinely hadn't considered being outnumbered. Regardless, she shrugged one shoulder in mild assent, taking a careful step backwards to put some extra distance between herself and Blake's swords.

Blake watched her carefully, not moving an inch from her own defensive stance. If this girl was here, Torchwick couldn't be far behind... and yet, she didn't see or hear anyone else in the near vicinity. She lifted her flattened ears to better listen for any potential sneak attacks. "...Where is Roman?"

Neo avoided Blake's eyes, her cardboard sign lowering. She gave another, smaller shrug. After a moment, she looked back up at Blake. Would she accept the truce?

Silence stretched between them, leaving room for Blake to relinquish some of her tension. Slowly, she rose from her defensive crouch, but not once did she loosen her grip on her weapons. The downtrodden girl looking up at her was a far cry from the confident fighter she'd glimpsed back beneath the highway and in the train from Mountain Glen, and farther still from the vicious opponent Yang had described to her. She seemed... far less manic.

Ren and Nora had mentioned fending off White Fang members in the city, so she'd assumed Torchwick and his ilk had fled by airship as per usual. But if Neo was still here... had Torchwick...

Blake immediately stamped down the small bud of sympathy trying to take root in her. For all she knew this could be some kind of tactic - a ploy to gain her trust before stabbing her in the back. ...Though, the smaller girl didn't seem to be carrying her parasol. Not that Blake was entirely convinced that Yang's description of the item counted as a weapon... and not that a common item that inconspicuous would be very difficult to hide in a camp littered with piles of scrap.

A long, lone howl sounded off in the distance, far too low in tone to be anything living. Blake bit her lip, taking a deep breath to calm herself and avoid actually attracting any Grimm.

This girl was dangerous, Blake knew that without a doubt, but she also seemed... exhausted, and willing to work together, if that request of hers for a truce was genuine anyway.

As much as Blake despised admitting it, survival took priority over grudges. She squared her shoulders. "Does anyone else know you're here?"

Neo pointed her thumb over to the cluster of tents, brow raised for clarification. She made a middling sort of gesture with her hand.

The others had no idea who she was.

Blake tilted her head at the... peculiar response. She assumed the gestures meant something along the lines of "yeah kinda"... which meant Neo was probably the "girl from Emerald's team" Ren had mentioned in passing... which also probably meant the others weren't aware of her criminal standing... but that was a whole lot of assuming.

It struck Blake then that they'd had this entire standoff without a single word from the other girl... Blake glanced once more at the cardboard sign, then back at Neo, her brows furrowing in curiosity. "Do you... talk?"

Neo's expression soured, and she tucked the cardboard under her arm as her hands darted in front of her in a flurry of deft movements.

Sign language.

She finished by holding her 'TRUCE' board out again and pointing at it.

Heaving a great sigh, Blake sheathed and stowed Gambol Shroud. She knew enough to recognize the sign language for what it was, but that was about as far as her knowledge reached. The small glowering girl could have just spouted a slew of obscenities for all she knew.

Regardless, if Neo had been a harmless part of Pyrrha's group of survivors for this long, Blake saw no point in stirring up trouble. Even a begrudging ally was preferable to an enemy. "I'm fine with a truce," she said with an air of indifference, "but... I can't speak for the rest of my team."

Neo searched Blake, as if to see if she meant it. Her shoulders dropped a little, in relief or defeat it was hard to tell. She looked tired more than anything. She motioned up to the vending machine and then over to the tents- namely the tent Ruby and Weiss were staying in.

Blake squinted, trying to decipher what the other girl was trying to convey. Did she want to show Ruby and Weiss the cracker machine? Did she want to bring them crackers? Was she... trying to infer that the crackers in the tent had been left as a peace offering? "...Crackers?" ...And that was about all she understood.

...This was surprisingly difficult - especially when lingering paranoia kept whispering quietly into Blake's ear that this entire encounter could just be a ploy to get her alone and off her while everyone thought she was hunting. She shook it off though, scrunching her eyes shut and rubbing her temple. Blake knew fatigue when she saw it, and this girl was in no condition to pick a fight.

That same flash of sympathy from earlier returned, refusing to be pushed aside. Neo was alone. Torchwick could have easily played the same game of hiding in plain sight - no one here new his face... but he wasn't here. Neo was alone, for whatever reason, and Blake knew that feeling all too well. Not to mention, if they were going to be working together, she could use a hand...

Frowning, Blake crossed her arms and side eyed the smaller girl, hoping she wasn't just going soft. "This might be a little left-field, but do you by any chance know anything about hunting?"

A frown developed on Neo's face. Her head cocked to one side.

* * *

In the morning, Ruby woke up feeling... empty. The canvas walls of the tent were less dark with the indirect light of the dawn sky. She blinked at them for a few minutes in the quiet. Eventually, she took a deep breath, the air filling her lungs not quite filling the hollow feeling she had. The fingers of the hand she hadn't tucked under the sleeping bag were stiff with cold, and she had a face full of her partner's white hair. She pushed herself up on her elbows, trying not to pull it and wake Weiss up as she spit to get her hair out of her mouth.

She looked around the dimly lit tent. Blake wasn't there. She must have slept someplace else after she'd gotten back from hunting. Who had been on night watch last night, Ruby wondered. Did Pyrrha keep a night watch going? It wouldn't make sense not to, with so many Grimm around.

The muffled 'clunk' of a log being added to a campfire confirmed that there was in fact a watch outside. Now that she listened, she could hear the snap and crackle of the fire.

Weiss didn't usually sleep hard, but she didn't even stir when Ruby extricated herself from the sleeping bag and pile of blankets. She only mumbled something incoherent and rolled over when Ruby had to slowly pull most of her cloak out from under her.

That done, Ruby pulled on her combat boots and did the laces and buckles as quietly as she could. She looked at the entrance to the tent, mustering the will to get up and go see who was awake.

At last, she did, steadying herself on a pile of crates as she lifted the heavy canvas flap and made her way out into the early morning air.

The remaining half of SSSN were the only ones present. Neptune looked up at her, probably the only person in camp tall enough to see over Sage's shoulders. Sage's back was to the tent, but Neptune stood beside the small fire-pit Ren and Nora had built for the camp's night watches. He smiled at Ruby and tried to wave, an act made nearly impossible by the sheer amount of firewood in his arms - far more than an actual fire needed, but the Haven-born huntsman in training actually knew very little about campfires.

Ruby lifted her hand halfway to wave. She'd never seen anyone carry firewood stacked up in his arms till it was over his head like that. She took a few steps over to the campfire, rolling her one shoulder to try to get some of the stiffness out. She still felt tired, like she had yesterday, but yesterday she'd mostly ignored it. Today it was strange, like someone had resoled her boots with cement when she was asleep.

Maybe it would wear off when she was a little more awake.

"Hey," she greeted the two by the fire as she practically dropped to a seat on one of the blown out stadium seats they'd set up around its edge. "See any Grimm last night?"

Far above, sitting atop the crumbled of the coliseum walls, Pyrrha watched the camp below, cracking a small smile at Neptune dropping his entire armful of wood when trying to swing his hand wide, probably to describe the lone Nevermore that had flown a bit too close for comfort. He looked better after a mostly uninterrupted night's sleep... as did Ruby.

Sighing, Pyrrha leaned against the rubble at her back. She envied them - just a little - since she could hardly last an hour before something jolted her awake. Probably nightmares... not that she could remember any of them, which was probably for the better. Still, she let her eyes fall shut as her mind wandered to Ren and Nora. They'd been out the entire night, but they were together, so there was little reason to worry over their safety. Folding her arms, Pyrrha hugged her rifle close and tried to relax, wondering when they might return, and whether they would actually succeed at the wild hunt she'd sent them on.

Behind her there was a short flutter of wings, and then footsteps that slowed on the crumpled metal a few yards from her.

It was Qrow. Of course it was Qrow. He stood empty handed.

Pyrrha sighed, turning just enough to see the familiar tattered edges of red cloak whipping out to the side, bolstered by the morning breeze. "I see Nora and Ren found you."

"Yeah, you could say that," or you could say he heard the hyper girl making up an off-key song about how Pyrrha wanted to talk to him. The lyrics described a bunch of weird reasons he figured were invented on the spot. He righted a stadium chair that had gotten torn out and flung up to the rim among the other debris and sat down. "So I'm going to go out on a limb and guess you don't want my world famous pancake recipe."

"That would be a no," Pyrrha confirmed, turning to face the older man. Streaks of grey ran through his hair where they hadn't before. Looking at him was still difficult - Pyrrha could feel raw anger swelling in her chest within seconds - but she managed a deep breath. "I wanted to apologize for last night." She could feel herself starting to seethe, so she looked away, watching the sun peak over the trees. "As much as I sympathize with Amber's... displeasure over your presence, I shouldn't have allowed her- myself- to treat you so poorly."

"Hey, take it easy on yourself. I probably would've done the same thing," he shrugged and leaned on the less mangled arm of the chair, "After all, I've never exactly been a harbinger of good news."

"You did say everything was going to get worse." Pyrrha quietly watched the broken rays of sunlight stretch across the expanse of trees below, lost in thought.

Aside from that short transfer student who stumbled her way into the coliseum midway through their first hectic week, Qrow was the first person to make it to their camp after the city's collapse. There were so many things she wanted to know - favors she needed to ask... Her eyes traced a ray of sun to the city. "So, in the spirit of making things better, if you can, you should tell... whoever it is sending defenseless ships here to please stop."

Qrow raised an eyebrow. He'd seen the ships. They were basically canned monster food delivered straight to the jaws of that old dragon.

"Yeah, you really think they'd have gotten the idea after the first two or three," he searched Pyrrha's profile. "I get the feeling that isn't why you wanted me up here, though."

For a long while Pyrrha said nothing, idly rubbing her hands over the lumpy metal plating covering her forearms. At length, she turned to face Qrow again. "I want to know _what on Remnant_ is happening out there- I _need_ to know," she appended. Distant red flashed in the corner of her peripheral vision, drawing her eyes back down to the coliseum's ground level, to Ruby.

The young team leader was, in fact, the only rightfully appointed leader present in their small group. Teams SSSN CFVY and even her own were all currently missing their leaders - a position Pyrrha had been unanimously voted into, but felt like she just barely managed. And while Ren stepping up as her right-hand man had helped her stay together this long... she was so _tired_ of bearing the burden of leadership alone. " _We_ need to know," Pyrrha appended a second time, lifting a hand in Ruby's direction.

A small chunk of metal dislodged from the wall and flew in a gentle arc, dropping to float in lazy circles around Ruby's head in a bid for her attention.


	55. Jaune' Rhymes with 'Something Wrong'

Down in camp, Ruby had been poking the embers with a piece of thin pipe that probably came from part of an air conditioning unit or sink or something. She glimpsed the flying hunk of metal out of the corner of her eye and squeaked, tumbling off her chair to avoid getting clocked.

Instead of hitting the ground (or her face), the metal circled around her as if tracing a halo over her head.

Ruby propped herself up on her elbows, staring at the floating chunk like it was some sort of alien. Her legs were still sprawled across the chair. "Um."

A low rumble of laughter came from Sage. He had his head down, his hand covering part of his face as he tried not to lose his composure.

The commotion roused Neptune from where he'd been dozing on a slightly misshapen chair of cobbled together metal. He cracked a smile as well, sharing an amused glance with Sage. "Ruby, up there." He pointed up to the top edge of the coliseum wall where Pyrrha stood.

Ruby looked up at her friend's silhouette, squinting to pick her out far up on the rim. Her usual morning energy had abandoned her. Maybe she just needed a solid breakfast. Or maybe it had been a bad idea to eat that open tin of preserved meat. She put a hand to her stomach, unable to decide if she felt hungry or sick. Mostly it was hungry.

Grumbling in mild complaint, she swatted at the circling metal and pushed herself up and getting to her feet, "Why is she always all the way up there?"

* * *

The supply tent was still quiet. Weiss slept, lying flat on her back with her arms folded neatly across her stomach amid the tangle of blankets Ruby had left behind. Her white hair lay in a tumble across the pillow, pooling near her shoulder like a frozen waterfall. She looked like she could have slept there forever, pristine amid the chaos of the camp's supplies, and maybe she would have if something- or someone, rather- didn't land on her stomach, knocking the wind out of her.

Several things happened at once. Weiss snapped awake, gasping and scrambling as a hand drove down on her mouth, forcing her head back into the pillow. One arm went for Myrtenaster (only to find that her sword wasn't beside her where she'd left it the previous night), the other was pinned under her assailant. Something smacked her in the face. By the time she could inhale again, she realized it was a cardboard sign with the word TRUCE in black marker.

She stopped struggling and blinked at the sign. Around its edge sat a small, serious-faced girl with pink and brown hair. She looked familiar.

Weiss bit her. A slight scuffle ensued, the heiress giving muffled protest and swatting at the girl as she smacked her in the face with the cardboard again. It didn't hurt, but it was beyond annoying and Weiss struggled to sit up, gripping a handful of the other girl's white jacket.

"Fine!" Weiss became significantly more intelligible when the girl gave in to the biting and pulled her hand back. "Now get off!"

Neo (because of course it was Neo) obliged, sitting on the corner of the sleeping bag, holding her sign while Weiss huffed and fixed her hair.

"What is wrong with you? Jumping on someone who's asleep like that," Weiss snatched Myrtenaster from the top of the crate beside her bed (where she had _not_ left it) and glared at the other girl, wary and appraising. They were in a similar state- fashionable but unkempt, probably because they'd been on the road for weeks and living out of a wrecked city respectively. She definitely recognized her. Her brow furrowed in the half light of the tent, "Wait a minute, aren't you-"

Neo pointed to her sign emphatically.

Weiss hesitated, her hand not leaving her sword. The girl was Neo, henchman to that Roman Torchwick person. She didn't seem to be armed, but that didn't mean anything considering the trouble she'd given Yang. "Why should I listen to you?"

At this, the other girl rummaged behind her and produced a full size chocolate bar. She held it out to the heiress as she white-knuckled her sign.

Weiss felt her stomach twist with all the ferocity of a creature that had a) not eaten properly in days and b) not seen _candy_ in _weeks_. If anyone else had been there to witness the exchange, Weiss might have refused on principle, but she'd had dry crackers the night before and honestly if she'd thrown a hot shower into the mix Weiss would have been just about ready to add her to the team, much less accept a cease fire.

"Fine. You want a truce?" Weiss relieved Neo of the candy with one hand and shook gingerly with the other. "Truce. But you had better have more of these."

* * *

Up on the rim, Qrow watched his niece drag her feet across the yard to the lopsided stairs that led up through the remaining stadium seating and to the ladders that gave access to their current perch.

"Say, where'd they get sent again? Before all this." Qrow asked to keep Pyrrha talking. James Point wasn't exactly an international hot spot. It was hardly a spot period- you'd be hard pressed to pick it out on a map, considering it was so small it didn't show up on most of them these days. He leaned on his chair, watching Ruby mount the steps below. "Some backwater, right?"

"James Point," she answered without missing a beat, watching Ruby's uncharacteristically sluggish ascent towards their aerial lookout spot. "They were sent on a Search and Destroy mission, but ran into some trouble." While Pyrrha shared Ozpin's certainty that team RWBY was strong enough to tackle whatever was thrown their way, Jaune had been _so worried,_ especially after Ozpin eventually announced their extended delay and unavoidable removal from the tournament. He pestered Ozpin for updates so often Pyrrha had all but memorized the headmaster's response. "A heavy snowstorm trapped them there and cut off all communication."

"Hm." The seat creaked as Qrow settled back into it.

Eventually, Ruby made it up. By the time she mounted the last stairs and climbed up to the rim, what felt like a bottomless pit had opened up in her stomach. She really should have eaten breakfast.

"Pyrrha, is there a schedule for eating breakfast or...?" she noticed her uncle, "Oh, hey Uncle Qrow."

He smirked at her bed-head, "Hey."

Ruby looked between him and Pyrrha, who stood some distance away. "Are you guys... not fighting?

That would be good. Ruby was way too tired and hungry to deal with her friend and her uncle fighting.

Pyrrha blinked, caught off guard by the blunt question. She glanced at Qrow, emerald briefly meeting crimson, sparking a prickle of irritation that cascaded from her head to her toes, just beneath her skin. She pushed the sensation aside.

"No quarrels here," Pyrrha answered softly, trying her best to give Ruby a smile. Mindful of the younger girl's original topic of food, Pyrrha pulled a small pack of crackers from one of her pouches and offered it to her. "Your uncle was just about to give us an update."

Ruby took the package of crackers. They were mostly smashed. She resigned herself to a dry and crumbly breakfast.

"Yeah, about that," Qrow got to his feet, rotating one shoulder like he was working out a kink. Clouds slid across the sun, casting everything in pale shadows. "This might come across as less of an update and more of a 'you need to leave as soon as possible'."

Pyrrha's lips pursed in a thin line, her eyes shifting to linger on the medical tent far below. "That may be... difficult, for some of us."

* * *

Down in the medical tent, a tiny pair of ears pricked up. Robin peeked over the edge of sleeping Yang. The rest of the tent was quiet except for the sound of Jaune's troubled breathing on the cot across from theirs. The tiny Faunus whimpered and squirmed up to nuzzle under Yang's chin.

Yang groaned and shifted just enough to bury her face between Robin's Faunus ears, muttering a slurred request for five more minutes.

Robin stayed still for a minute. When Yang didn't get up, she whimpered again, hanging onto and biting Yang's shirt collar.

The light warning scrape of teeth finally spurred the brawler into action. Groaning again, Yang cracked one eye open, peering down at the tiny Faunus in her arms. "You're a persistent one, you know that?" With a great, heaving sigh, she pushed herself up into a sitting position as best she could with Robin's tenacious grip dragging her already-tattered shirt collar down her shoulder.

Robin whined again, clinging onto Yang's shirt.

On the other side of the tent, Jaune's labored breathing seized.

* * *

"I don't mean 'some of you'. I mean you in particular," Qrow said, his gaze steady on Pyrrha. "No one cares about a bunch of half-trained huntsmen and huntresses camping out in the ruins. A half-trained Maiden, on the other hand, is an opportunity a lot of people won't chance passing up."

Ruby stood to the side, crunching a mouthful of crumbs. On one hand, this was really bad. On the other, she knew how these stories went. She had the biggest collection of fairy tale books on Patch, as far as she knew, and after weeks in the mountains fighting Grimm with her teammates, heroes and monsters were her daily routine. Well, heroes, monsters, and the stress of a small town depending on them to get help. "If someone's after Pyrrha, we can stop them, though, right?"

She turned to Pyrrha as she spoke, seeking her friend's agreement in her earnest belief.

Pyrrha, who had bridled at Qrow's outright dismissal of her newly-extended team - her friends - mustered the will to hold her anger at bay in Ruby's presence. She couldn't manage a smile, but she did nod, fully sharing in the younger girl's confidence. "I have to ask though," her brows furrowed a fraction of an inch as she studied the lines of Qrow's face, "when you call me a half-trained Maiden... half-trained for _what_ exactly?"

Ruby jumped in before her uncle could answer, "To use your powers to help people. I mean, I guess that's kind of vague, but that's how the Four Maidens ends. They help the wizard, and he gives them magic so they can help other people too."

How having powers that related to the seasons would help people was never explained, exactly, but Ruby was one hundred percent certain that they would be a huge help, especially now that she'd heard her uncle's story about an actual Maiden being able to use electricity and ice and stuff.

That ran through her head while she watched her friend's brow furrow. Ruby blinked a couple of times to make sure she wasn't just seeing things. Did Pyrrha seem a little paler than usual?

"Sure," Qrow ran a hand over his hair, content to shrug in the face of his niece's enthusiasm, "I was thinking more along the lines of you being able to use them to stay alive, but yeah, that's how the story goes."

He paused, noticing what Ruby was noticing.

"Hey, it's not like that was a big reveal or anything," he put a hand up, as if Pyrrha might lose her footing. "You need to sit down?"

* * *

Yang stifled a huge yawn.

The subtle change in her fellow patient's breathing slipped right past her damaged ears as she rolled her shoulders, stretched out her back and neck... She also missed the soft sound of stitches popping from the small Faunus still hanging from her shirt. Her collar bit into the back of her neck though, dragging her gaze down to Robin.

"You're gonna have to let go eventually you know... Or… actually, how about this!" She wrapped an arm around the little girl, hoisting her up a bit and swinging her around so she was in high-riding piggy-back mode. "Ta-daa! All aboard the Xiao-Long Express-..."

Yang's enthusiasm died in her throat upon catching sight of Jaune - his face contorted in anguish. He had _not_ looked like that earlier. "Woah, hey, hey now..." Adrenaline seeped into her limbs, putting an urgent spring in her step as she hopped down from her own cot and padded barefoot over to his. "Hey there sleeping beauty," she gingerly placed a hand on his shoulder, "you okay?" She shook him a little. "You finally waking up or something?"

Jaune's hair stuck to his forehead, plastered by a sheen of cold sweat. He seemed a lot paler than usual. His breathing came in short, painful gasps.

Robin gripped tiny fistfuls of Yang's hair, resting her chin on top of her head and whining softly, her ears pinned flat.

"Ohhhh not good not good very bad very very bad-" Yang chanted lightly to herself as she briefly wrestled over staying to keep an eye on him and leaving for help - ultimately deciding that sticking around while someone was potentially dying was probably a terrible idea and not something that Robin needed to see. Getting help shot to priority one.

Yang spared a second to thank the stars that she felt well rested enough to even be up and moving as she searched wildly for her boots- ah, there, under her own cot. "Hang on tight kiddo," she said to Robin as she stuffed her socks in her pocket for later, jammed her bare feet into her boots, and bolted out of the tent.

* * *

A light breeze played across the coliseum's wall. Qrow's concern seemed genuine… but Pyrrha turned her head and waved him off. "I'm all right," she insisted, despite swaying just slightly. "I'm just..." the temperature around her suddenly plummeted - a snap of cold that lasted just long enough for airy puffs of white to give away her quick shallow breaths. "I think I'm tired," she put a hand to her forehead, closing her eyes and grimacing as the cold vanished in an eruption of heat not unlike Yang's. Clouds swirled in and out of existence far over their heads. Pyrrha's shoulders caved and she held her head in both hands. "But... perhaps I should sit down..."

That was absolutely not normal. Ruby and Qrow exchanged glances.

"Think you're okay to get back down to camp?" Ruby asked, moving to take one of Pyrrha's arms over her shoulders even though that might mean risking a little heat. All the medical supplies were down there, plus it would be bad if Pyrrha fell off the rim and out into the woods. Qrow moved to support her if it became necessary.

Pyrrha nodded, trying to cool herself down before accepting Ruby's support. Granted, with a sister like Yang, perhaps Ruby was use to intolerable levels of heat, but she had to at least _try_ to control this strange outburst. She focused, dispelling the clouds and heat as best she could... but something backfired. Pyrrha's entire body frosted over, a soft coating of rime spreading over her from head to toe.

Oddly enough, she didn't notice the cold at first, resting a hand on Ruby's shoulder. She immediately jerked her hand away when that same frost spread over where she'd touched Ruby's cloak. Pyrrha's armor creaked in protest over her sudden movements, fractures spidering all throughout the weakened metal. "I'm- I'm sorry. I'll just-" she turned to head down the path, trailing frost as she went.

"Eep, okay," Ruby jumped in front of Pyrrha, "maybe you can just wait here?"

After the quick dash, Ruby's knees threatened to buckle, and despite the frost she grabbed onto Pyrrha both to stop her and to keep herself steady.

"Alright, both of you," risk of frostbite or no, Qrow caught both of their collars before anyone could fall over, intending to lower them to the ground, "sit down."

Pyrrha didn't have the strength or desire to resist, allowing Qrow to push her into a sitting position beside Ruby. She glared down at the trails of frost spiraling out from where her body touched the metal beneath her. These ridiculous, confusing Maiden powers - just when she thought she was getting the hang of them, here they went spiraling out of control and making her sick to her stomach-

A distant flash of yellow pulled Pyrrha's gaze over to the floor of the coliseum. It was Yang, running towards Neptune and Sage. Whatever relief Pyrrha felt over seeing her friend well enough to be up and about twisted into terror over the way the brawler was frantically gesturing to the medical tent.

"Jaune-" Pyrrha jumped right back to feet and took off at a sprint, not even missing a step when she clipped her arm on a jutting piece of rebar and shattered one of her cobbled-together gauntlets.

Long tendrils of solid inky black wrapped around her bare forearm, vanishing a moment later beneath a fresh coating of rime.

Ruby shared a glance with her uncle, who put a firm hand over her head to stop her when she tried to look back after Pyrrha.

"So that's probably not good," he jerked his chin towards the warrior's haphazard flight down the stairs towards the huddle of tents near the center of the arena. He leaned in and squinted at her, "But why are your eyes red?"

"Oh, uh, I," Ruby immediately avoided her uncle's eyes, even though they were red too. Red eyes weren't weird. Yang's eyes turned red when her semblance activated. It was totally a normal thing to have red eyes, though maybe probably not when your eyes had been silver your whole life until a day ago. "I kind of... I... don't know?"

"As in you don't know, or you don't want to say?" Qrow let her head go and settled down cross-legged on the metal walkway next to her.

"Um... both?" Ruby brushed her hand over her hair self-consciously. Being pretty much totally self-sufficient (or team-sufficient, at least) in the mountains for weeks didn't really make her feel like any less of a kid compared to her uncle. She didn't feel... well, she felt tired, but she didn't feel _bad_ , so maybe it was nothing? "... I tried to aura heal a dog we rescued in James Point."

Qrow stared at her. He wasn't an easy guy to surprise, but he looked taken off guard.

Ruby gave him an uncertain grin, kind of shrugging into her cloak. Probably she was fine, right?

Down below, there came a sound like a muffled explosion.

Qrow ran a hand over his face.

"Let's go see what the new crisis is." He planted his hands on his knees and levered himself up, "but after that, we're gonna have a talk."

* * *

 **A/N: Pssst, it's late at night, but have this chapter!**

 **\- Fiercesomest**


	56. Just Kidding Everything is Wrong

**A/N: GUYS WE MISSED YOUUUUUUUUU**

 **It's a bit late in the day but we are back! So did you guys enjoy that season of RWBY? Now that it's ended, so has our Hiatus, so it's back to posting chapters! Yay~!**

 **On that note, Search is a bit of a beast, so we may update this one at a slightly slower rate than Catnip, since writing it is, well slower. Sorry in advance!**

 **Also we were bad and left off in like, the middle of all sorts of insanity so uh, going back and reading like, the past chapter or two might help this one make a bit more sense~**

 **Gosh it's nice to be back. Enjoy the chapter!**

 **Hugs all around,**  
 **D**

* * *

A sudden stream of apologies floated up from the coliseum grounds where Pyrrha, Sage, and Yang stood a few steps away from Neptune.

Electricity crackled and danced in small arcs from Pyrrha's fingertips - the same fingertips she had brushed Neptune's shoulder with while passing around him, sending a live current cascading down the copious amounts of metal adorning his outfit and setting off several of the spare rounds in his belt.

"I'm sorry!" One of his legs was encased in ice from one of his dust-filled rounds, but he seemed otherwise unharmed, "Oh- Neptune, I'm sorry- I- Sage, Yang, help him," Pyrrha pleaded, fleeing to the medical tent.

Sage watched the frost-encrusted warrior vanish through the tent flap. He drew his greatsword and crossed to Neptune in two giant strides.

Weiss emerged from the supply tent just in time to see him bring the sword down on Neptune's leg.

She went white as a sheet, certain for an instant that she'd just witnessed an amputation. Fortunately, he'd used the flat of it and all that had been removed was the casing of ice. It lay shattered around Neptune's entirely intact leg.

"What on Remnant is going on?" she looked from Sage and Neptune to Yang. Robin was still perched on the blonde's shoulders, whimpering into her hair.

"Hey!" Ruby called, jogging up to camp. She'd broken away from Qrow back at the stairs, and he didn't seem to be in a hurry to catch up. Weiss scowled as she approached the group and bent over, hands on her knees to catch her breath. "Where... where'd Pyrrha...?"

Wow, breathing was a lot harder than she remembered.

"Where have you been?" Weiss grabbed the back of her hood to pull her upright, making her grimace and cough, "You're supposed to be resting."

"And what were you saying about Jaune?" Neptune asked with furrowed brows, standing on one leg as he brushed stray bits of ice from the other.

Yang didn't even notice Neptune speaking to her, skipping right past him, Sage, and Weiss to grab Ruby by the shoulders. "So, don't freak out or anything, but Jaune is looking _really_ bad."

Ruby squinted at Yang. Her voice sounded funny, like it was coming through a tin can phone. That was strange. Ruby had a split second to think about that before her knees buckled. She caught her sister's sleeve to steady herself and ended up dropping her full weight into her arms. She tried to get her feet back under her, protesting quickly, "I'm okay. I'm..."

Pyrrha was in trouble. And Jaune. Running from the edge of the coliseum had been a bad idea. Eating those crackers had been a bad idea. Her mouth watered like she was going to be sick, and everything threatened to slide out of focus, like she'd stepped off some kind of path and was fighting not to slide down a steep, dark incline.

"Stop talking," Weiss snapped at her, forcibly loosening the collar of her cloak overtop of Yang's support. "Yang, make her sit and put her head down."

Robin started whimpering and squirming, trying to get off Yang's shoulders.

Yang didn't exactly put Ruby down, but she did swing her up into a bridal carry, eyes wide with worry as she held her baby sister close. She looked... absolutely terrible, for lack of a nicer description. "Okay, all right, uh -" she turned to face Neptune and Sage, masking her rising panic with an attempt at a cool exterior, "So could one of you maybe check on Pyrrha and one of you grab this little rascal?"

"Yeah! Yeah uh, sure I've got her," channeling the nervous energy coursing through the group, Neptune sprang into action, plucking the little girl from Yang's shoulders and just kind of... holding her at arms length.

Sage meanwhile turned to the medical tent, where Pyrrha had disappeared. He swept aside the tent flap and ducked through.

Robin scrabbled at Neptune's wrists, trying to get her teeth into them.

"Woah hey uh," Neptune shifted his grip in the most awkward manner possible, now holding the wild little girl by her ankles.

Neptune would soon regret his shift of grip. Tiny and light as she was, Robin curled up almost into a ball, grabbed onto the tall boy's arm, and bit as hard as she could.

"Ow ow ow oW OW Sage! Sage she's trying to kill me! I think I'm bleeding! Sage!" Neptune's cries for help quieted as he ran into the medical tent still holding Robin.

Ruby tried to grab Yang's jacket to help stave off the dizzy, sick feeling, but she ended up with a handful of her own cloak, and then someone's hand caught hers. It was ice cold. Weiss was yelling somewhere far off, and Yang shifted so Ruby's head was resting right over her heart. She shut her eyes and listened to that warm, steady sound as her consciousness slipped away.

* * *

 _This is a dream._ Ruby had the thought dimly as she opened her eyes. She was lying on her face, and at first all she saw was white. She propped herself up on her elbows and snow fell off her head and down the neck of her cloak. The cold wasn't the sharp bite of the real world, though. It was a distant, feathery feeling. She blinked and looked around at the frozen trees and frost covered brambles.

Was this the forest back on Patch? Ruby thought maybe she should get up, but she was tired, so she just stayed, propped up on her elbows, lying on her stomach in the snow. The cold didn't bother her at all, probably because this was a dream. She breathed out slowly and watched as her breath hung in the air. It was a realistic dream.

The nearby thorns twined up the trunks of the trees. They were roses, she knew. All the buds were closed tight, waiting for the frost to go. The light dimmed after only a few yards, as if there was a single pale Dust lamp lit above her head somewhere whose light didn't reach far into the woods.

Something shifted out beyond the edge of the light.

Ruby waited. She had a passing thought that maybe this was going to be a nightmare, but she didn't feel afraid. Just curious to see what was there.

Somewhere far overhead, a bird cawed.

The light's edge shimmered and shook, shrinking in and expanding further with each of Ruby's breaths. Eventually, it reached something solid. Elegant white tails - the light revealed six of them - gently flowed as if through water. Another expansion, and light spilled over the body of a strange white creature sitting in the snow, its back turned to Ruby as it looked up through the treetops at the shattered moon.

Ruby watched the tails and tried to make out the shape of the creature's head. Its fur was thick and white. It looked kind of like... Drei?

As if it could sense it was being watched, the creature turned, fixing Ruby with a burning red stare, shining from pitch black eyes. Curious, it stood, shook itself off, and began crossing the snowy expanse towards her.

That creeping, nightmare feeling closed around Ruby's chest a little more tightly. Her limbs felt like lead, and the circle of light shrank around them as her breathing became more shallow. All she could hear was the soft crunch of snow under the creature's paws as it approached.

It stopped barely a hair's breadth away, watching Ruby's every move... or lack thereof. A low breeze swept up small swirls of snow. Leaves fell soundlessly around them, never touching. A light flutter of wings rustled overhead. Nothing could pull its gaze from her.

Tall, pointed ears flattened against its skull as its angular jaws split apart, revealing pristine razor-sharp teeth opened wide... in a yawn.

The snow seemed to make way for it as it effortlessly laid down, head cocked the barest millimeter to one side as it studied Ruby up close, scarlet searching crimson.

Ruby tried to swallow, but it didn't get rid of the cottony feeling in her mouth. The creature- was it a dog? Was it a huge fox?- didn't seem like it was going to attack. If this was a dream, she might as well try talking, right? Her voice came out in a soft squeak, "Um. Hi?"

The creature's eyes slid shut, and it almost seemed to smile.

 _I see. One of mine._

The voice seeped into Ruby's mind like thick tar through a white cloth. It was old- older than old, and full of power and something else... something dark. She shrank down in the snow, shivering. The dread in her chest dug its claws in and tears pricked at the corners of her eyes- she wanted to go home.

 _Oh._

The creature opened its eyes once more. Six blood-red irises focused on Ruby where there had once been two.

 _But you have no home to return to._

"Yeah, I do," Ruby protested, her words thick in her mouth. She said it more in a hazy, half-blind attempt to bear the sticky feeling of that voice in her head than out of any sort of conviction.

 _Oh?_

The creature stood, first to all fours, then up onto two, growing in size and shifting form as it grew in height.

 _Where?_

Where was her home? Silence blanketed the pair, thicker than the snow around them. Ruby saw the creature standing, its form changing as it moved. The red eyes, the white skin... the hair prickled up at the back of her neck way worse than it had been before as a childhood of fairytales and patchwork parental advice reminded her, clear as crystal in her terrified haze, that you never, ever tell strange creatures where you're from or what your name is.

* * *

"Yang, stop moving, I can't concentrate," Weiss snarled, trying to focus her aura enough to heal her partner.

"I'm trying not to drop her, so if you could just-" Yang fumed at Weiss, stopping short when an enormous figure rounded the corner of the medical tent.

Yatsuhashi stood tall as always, one brow quirked at the group as he lightly shifted his grip on the equally-enormous dead stag draped across his shoulders. He frowned upon seeing Ruby's small, limp form cradled in her older sister's arms. "Is she all right?"

"I'm... gonna have to go with no on that one," Yang gritted out, trying to hold her sister as still as possible so that Weiss could focus.

His frown deepened. "Then, which of you is second in command?"

"That's really not important right now-"

"I have news to report, concerning your final team member."

That got Yang's attention. "Blake?" She tried her best to look up at him without moving the rest of her body. "What about Blake?"

Yatsuhashi seemed content to address Yang, considering Weiss's preoccupation with healing her partner. "We ran across a strange Beowolf on our way back from the hunt, and she went after it."

"Could you all please shut. Up." Weiss clenched her teeth, eyes shut as she refused to let the pale glow of her aura, which spread to Ruby, flicker out. "Also I'm clearly second in command, Yang."

Yang ignored Weiss's prickles, laser-focused on Yatsuhashi. "What kind of strange Beowolf?"

"It looked average, but it had silver eyes," he stated as plainly as if he were describing the weather. He turned his attention to Weiss, self-proclaimed second in command, "She requested backup."

Qrow, who had been following Ruby down the stairs at a more leisurely pace until she'd collapsed, pulled up short next to Yatsuhashi, going pale as his gaze fixed on his unconscious niece and Weiss.

"What do you think you're doing?" he demanded, moving to yank Weiss away from Ruby but hesitating at the last second, as if afraid to touch them..

The heiress kept her eyes shut, reserving all her concentration for the task at hand.

Yang stared, mouth agape at her uncle who had just appeared literally out of nowhere. Not that she wasn't used to him dropping by unannounced - when had he even arrived? She _had_ spent most of the last couple of days sleeping...

She didn't bother asking, it wasn't the time. Jaune was in trouble, Blake needed help, Ruby was quite literally out cold and getting colder by the second in her very arms, and Qrow decides to just randomly show up and scold them? Yang's eyes briefly flashed red at her own uncle. "She's _trying_ to heal her."

"Ah, so _this_ is that technique that Ren and Nora have been using?" Yatsuhashi looked on in great interest, turning so he could better see past the antlers of the stag on his shoulders. "I've never seen it up close."

"You've all been sharing auras?" Qrow shook his head, but not before the others might have spotted the flicker of fear in his eyes. "You know what? Forget it. Just don't join in till I get back." He turned to Yatsuhashi, "I'm your backup, big guy. You said this Grimm's got silver eyes?"

Yatsuhashi nodded, seeing no need to question the older newcomer about his identity if he was already willing to help. Shifting his hips, he let the stag he was carrying slip from his shoulders and gently set it on the ground, motioning for Qrow to follow him to the side entrance he'd used. "She followed it north."

Yang didn't spare a single glance as Yatsuhashi and Qrow left, she didn't even wish them luck, there was no need to. If anyone could take that monster down it was uncle Qrow. She simply clutched Ruby a bit closer, keeping a close eye on Weiss as well.

Weiss knelt, still clutching Ruby's hand as she tried to extend her aura to heal her from whatever had happened to her. Probably she should have asked- she'd assumed it was some kind of residual effect from aura sharing with a non-human species, but something could have happened in the time before she'd woken up. Dust, how could this have happened? Ruby was supposed to get her if she started feeling strange at all.

Barely aware of her surroundings, she kept her eyes shut and bent her head over her partner, concentrating. Ruby was still breathing, but her breaths were coming faster and was it just Weiss or did her hand feel colder than it had before?

Yang felt it as well, furious that the heat she was pouring out seemed to have no effect. She was so far beyond wondering about the hows and whys of the situation - all she needed to know was how to make it better. "Come on sis," she pressed her face to the top of Ruby's head and spoke low, so as not to disturb Weiss, "We haven't even had breakfast yet…" she eyed the enormous stag Yatsuhashi had left behind, "we've got all this nice venison here..." Even Ruby's hair was cooling down. Was her warmth and Weiss's aura just not enough? There had to be something more she could do.

Setting her jaw, Yang closed her eyes and focused, tossing aside her uncle's warning not to join in as she reached out with her aura. The warning didn't even make sense, two was always going to be stronger than one. Unless it had something to do with the vague warning the professors had given when they first taught them the technique, something about reserving the use of aura sharing for extreme emergencies only... which this definitely counted as.

Reddish gold built around Yang, slowly extending around the trio huddled on the ground... but something was off. The closer she reached, the more resistance she met. The gentle pink of Ruby and Weiss's combined auras seemed to roil against her, absolutely unyielding wherever she tried to connect.

Desperation drove her to try to connecting anyway. The resulting shock shattered her concentration and left her reeling.

Weiss felt the sharp jab of Yang trying to connect her aura to hers and whatever fraction of Ruby's they were dealing with. It was like a jolt from an electrical outlet, and should have completely broken off her own efforts because it darn well broke her concentration. She was about to snap at Yang for interrupting when she found that she... couldn't. In fact, she couldn't move at all. There was a hazy, liquid sort of pull, like her aura was draining down her arms, into Ruby...

With growing alarm, she realized that she'd felt this once before, back when she had first tried aura healing her partner. That hadn't gone spectacularly well (i.e. it still ranked very highly on her list of most traumatizing life experiences to date) so she dug in her heels- or whatever the aura equivalent to that was.

Dust, Dust, Dust, Dust, she did not need a trip to Ruby's nightmare dreamscape. Was this the same as back then? The red pattern in her partner's bone mask burned hot in her mind's eye- the hiss of that black scythe, the hands around her throat, the scream when she'd torn the mask off. She wasn't prepared to fight Ruby like that again.

Helpless, she knelt there, trying not to lose her grip, trying to think of what to do as she lost it bit by bit anyway.

"Ugh," Yang shook her head, trying to clear her swimming vision. "Jeeze, sorry Weiss." When her vision finally cleared, she squinted at Weiss, wary of the fact that she hadn't immediately snapped at her for the interruption. "...Weiss?" Yang reached out with her free arm to gently shake the heiress's shoulder, inhaling a sharp breath when she slumped forward atop Ruby, unresponsive. "No... Oh no-"

* * *

 **A/N: Just because we were left off in the midst of chaos before DOESN'T MEAN WE WON'T END A CHAPTER IN THAT SAME MIDST.**

 **Seriously, guys, we've had a great break, and we've got a bunch of great chapters lined up. Eventually we'll catch up with ourselves and have to slow down to posting maybe twice a month, just to keep the chapters coherent, but until then, enjoy!**

 **Leave a review if you feel like it! We're interested to hear what folks thought of Volume 5. Also we just threw Ruby into some _deep_ trouble here. Good times.**

 **Stay tuned!**

 **\- Fiercesomest**


	57. Beyond Stranger Danger

Ruby clenched her fists in the snow to try to keep from shaking as she stared up at the woman with red eyes. Another bleak caw sounded far overhead as more and more swirls of white circled around them, blotting out the trees.

 _Are you afraid?_

A woman stood where the creature had been, carefully watching Ruby with those same burning red eyes.

Ruby put her head down in her arms, only managing a small whimper. It didn't matter if she hid her face- she could still feel those red eyes on her. The wind mussed her hair and scattered snow down the exposed back of her neck near the collar of her cloak. She was starting to feel the cold. She wasn't going to say where her home was, though.

 _I could take you there._

The offer hung in the air, nearly tangible, frozen into place with the snowflakes that had ceased falling, suspended mid-swirl as if waiting in suspense for a reply.

Ruby shook her head.

The cold pressed closer as the woman waited. Ice crept up the trunks of the trees, shimmering under the shattered moonlight, but the woman's gaze remained fixed, bright burning red dispassionately watching Ruby shiver face-down in the snow. Eventually she leaned forward a fraction, folding her hands in front of her.

 _If you stay here..._

Before the woman could finish, there was a disturbance in the snow a few yards to the left of the shivering girl, near the edge of the slowly shrinking clearing.

Weiss flung snow as she scrambled to her feet, disoriented and furious. "Yang, what is _wrong_ with you, you brain-dead idiotic-"

It was cold and mostly dark, and there were trees everywhere. She whirled around and caught sight of Ruby's cloak, which was attached to Ruby, who was lying on her face in front of a towering woman with glowing red eyes and bone pale skin. The woman's hair was an ashy white, bound in six separate strands with dark ribbon. Veins as black as poison spidered along her cheekbones.

"Ruby!" Weiss practically leapt to her partner's side, grabbing her hood in one hand and summoning a glyph in her other. There was no way to make sure she was okay and defend her at the same time, but Weiss was going to do it anyway. She snarled at the woman, "Get away from her!"

The woman paid little mind to the bright white circular glyph that bloomed between her and the two girls in the snow. She simply smiled, looking as though she'd been handed a marvelous gift.

 _Ruby..._

The swirls of snow surrounding them began to rise, falling up into the sky. Her gaze shifted to Weiss.

 _And you are?_

"I'm Weiss Schnee," Weiss said with all the confused indignation of someone who rarely needed to introduce herself. The light had changed, going paler, the color of her glyph. The thorns stood out black where they twined the tree trunks. The snow was falling _up_ now. She tried to loop an arm around Ruby, who was crying softly with her head down in the snow. Weiss clenched her fist in Ruby's cloak and snarled at the woman, "Who- what are you? What did you do to her?"

If she'd hurt Ruby, Weiss didn't care that she was unarmed in some freakish snowbound nightmare- she was going to tear this woman apart.

The woman in question simply watched the pair, deep in thought that apparently had little to do with Weiss's line of questioning.

 _Why are you here?_

"Did you hear me?" Weiss left Ruby for a second, planting herself directly in front of this stranger, her shoulders square and fists clenched as she met the woman's red eyes. "If you did something to her, I'll-"

\- her eyes were _very_ red, and rimmed with black. That wasn't normal. Weiss hesitated, her anger tempering to wariness as she realized that he hadn't seen the woman's mouth move when she spoke. Also, she didn't feel... right.

More cawing came from overhead as black seeped from the woman into the snow beneath her, spidering out in all directions in slow syrupy tendrils.

 _Why..._

She closed her eyes. Upon opening them once more, thousands upon thousands of pairs of watchful burning red eyes sparked to life all around them all at once. The woman's indifferent expression had shifted, edging ever closer to irritation.

 _...are you here?_

Weiss shrank back, her gaze trapped by the woman's question. Dread gripped her chest, crushing like a vice. She had to answer.

This woman was obviously some kind of... of... Weiss didn't have a clue. All she knew was that she'd made a miscalculation. A major one.

* * *

Yatsuhashi crept quietly through the forest underbrush... or at least, as quietly as someone of his stature was capable of. The huntsman following him - that's what he assumed the older man was anyway - was surprisingly silent for how uneven his steps seemed.

They were traveling north, because that was the direction Blake and the silver-eyed Beowolf had run... but the farther they delved into the forest, the deeper the realization sank in that he actually he had no idea where Blake had gone.

Just as he was berating himself for not requesting some kind of signal from Blake, he stopped, squinting at something in the distance. Several pinpricks of red... a pack of Beowolves milling about in a small clearing... and just beyond them, barely visible between a pair of towering oaks, twin pinpricks of silver.

"Hey, is your friend with the aura barriers still around?" Qrow murmured, eyes fixed on the beowolf in question.

Yatsuhashi shook his head, speaking low, "I haven't seen Ren or Nora since-" he paused, squinting at something flashing in the treetops above the silver-eyed Beowolf. "What..." He could just make out what looked to be someone... Blake. It was Blake, reflecting the sun into his eyes with her sword to get his attention. She then motioned for them to stay put.

Qrow saw the flicker of light and remained crouched. A grim smirk played at the edge of his mouth as his hand rested on the hilt of his sword. "Looks like it's time to get this show on the road."

Yatsuhashi nodded, reaching for his own sword as well. He barely brushed its hilt when the silver-eyed Beowolf moved. At least, that was the only thing he could assume was happening - all he could see beyond blurry streaks of silver and bursts of black petals were the red-eyed Beowolves snarling and lashing out, scrambling to retaliate against what they could barely track themselves. Limbs flew and those burning red eyes went out one by one until the entire pack lay dead, dissolving into the air around their target.

Qrow stayed crouched, loosening his grip on his sword as he watched the ash dissipate. Well, at least there was zero doubt that this Grimm was the one Ruby had been aura sharing with. Gears turned in his mind. There was a chance that if they killed it the silver eyes/aura whatever would just return to its rightful owner, aka his niece. There was a chance it would just disappear, though, and what with aura being the manifestation of one's soul... well.

Regardless of where the soul ended and the aura started (if there was even a line between them, which Qrow found somewhat doubtful), Ruby was in deep without hers. It was a miracle she wasn't some kind of zombie as it was. Seriously, how stupid did you have to be to share souls? It's not like you could, oh, _lose it_ , or wind up living in someone else's body, or get it corrupted and develop glowing red eyes and a thing for the blood of humanity.

They would have to catch the wolf, then. Qrow ran a hand over his face. After they hauled it back to camp they could worry about somehow siphoning Ruby's aura out of it and back into her. "Great. Just great."

"What..." Yatsuhashi stood transfixed, watching as Blake dropped from the trees and slowly approached the lone wolf with both swords drawn. She was walking out in the open. "What is she-"

The Beowolf turned and froze, fixing its sights on Blake. She froze as well, and the entire clearing seemed to freeze with them as amber locked with bright silver, neither moving an inch. Slowly, Blake lowered her weapons.

Well, this was getting interesting. Qrow pushed a branch out of the way so he could watch. If the Beowolf attacked the girl, he wouldn't hesitate to intervene. In the meantime, he was content to observe.

... up to a point, anyway. They needed to catch this thing and get it back to camp ASAP.

Yatsuhashi watched, mouth agape as Blake approached the Beowolf completely unguarded and started... speaking to it? He couldn't hear from this distance, but he could see the wolf tilt its head at her. She tried a few more times, visibly slumping when it turned its head and began sniffing at the air, completely ignoring her. She waved them over.

"Well, it's not running. That should make things easier, at least," Qrow grumbled. He ducked under whippy branches as he stepped out of the bushes and eyed the Beowolf in the center of the clearing. A Beowolf with a soul- or at least part of one. There was no telling how it would react if they tried to grab it.

With his longer legs, Yatsuhashi made it over to Blake first, but he found he had no words for her, or for the half-crouched Beowolf standing harmlessly within arms reach.

Blake looked up at him, then glanced over at Qrow. Her brow arched. "...Not the backup I was expecting, You're..." she studied his red eyes, so much like Yang's. How was it that Ruby had referred to him? "...Ruby's uncle, right?"

The Beowolf, despite largely ignoring Yatsuhashi and Blake, turned its head at Qrow's approach, flashing its teeth and emitting a low warning growl.

Qrow raised his hands in a peaceful gesture, taking several steps backwards, "Hey, you heard her. I'm just the backup."

He had to admit the Beowolf's instincts were on point, though.

The Beowolf's ears perked, and it ceased growling to lift its head and sniff the air. Its company seemingly forgotten, it loped towards whatever it had sensed.

Shooting a suspicious glance at Qrow, Blake sighed and followed after the wolf, motioning for the other two to follow. "This is the third pack I've watched him take down."

Yatsuhashi looked suitably impressed. He shortened his steps to keep pace with Blake and their target. "I've never heard of a Grimm attacking their own... and that speed- those petals-"

"Just like Ruby's semblance," Blake confirmed, frowning at the Beowolf's back as it paused to sniff again.

"A Beowolf with a semblance?..." Yatsuhashi's brows furrowed in thought, "Then, is there really a need to hunt it, since it appears to be an ally?"

"The semblance is on loan," Qrow slouched up to join them- 'join' as in stay ten feet back so the Beowolf didn't get spooked. "Unless you want to see how one of your team leaders does without her whole soul. Personally, I'm not that curious."

"Without her whole..." Yatsuhashi looked aghast, "That explains why she was unconscious."

That got Blake's attention. "Ruby's in trouble?"

That got the wolf's attention. It halted and swung its head around, wide-eyed silver darting between Yatsuhashi and Blake for all of a second before it vanished in a blurred burst of black.

Ashen rose petals fell gently in its wake, forming a trail that led straight towards the coliseum.

 **A/N: Help is on the way! Or else it's going to try to murder Ruby, along with everything else. Kind of an even toss-up right now.**

 **Also, surprise! We had enough for a chapter, so we figured we'd stay on the Saturday schedule for another week or two. Second week! It's still good to be back!**

 **\- Fiercesomest**


	58. Ruff and Tumble

**A/N: So, looks like the current plan is to go ahead and post chapters weekly up until we catch up to ourselves... and then do once every other week! Hopefully that's all right! Annnnd hopefully Ruby and Weiss are all right! Jeeze!**

 **Hugs,**  
 **D**

* * *

The medical tent was finally quiet again.

Sage had somehow managed to pry Robin's teeth out of Neptune's sleeve, and put the scrambling little girl in an empty crate of packing peanuts, where she immediately burrowed in, growling at the boys as they exchanged glances near the edge of the crate.

Pyrrha slumped over Jaune, who had finally stabilized on his own. While the same could be said for her maiden's powers, the same could not be said for her heart. It beat like a bird trying to escape its cage. Jaune hadn't had an episode like this in at least three... maybe even four days. She'd lost count.

Sighing quietly to herself, Pyrrha ground the heels of her palms into her eyes as she called a few scraps of metal towards her with her polarity. The pieces wrapped around her frost-covered arm, where the previous piece of armor had shattered. She'd been foolish to think he'd been getting better...

"Hey, Pyrrha?"

Pyrrha blinked, looking up at the medical tent's entrance. Neptune and Sage stood just inside, both looking worried in their own ways. Somewhere in the corner, a box with fox ears poking out of it snarled.

Neptune, who had called to her, lifted a hand, his eyes flicking back and forth between Pyrrha and Jaune, "Is he... well, I guess asking if he's okay is stupid-"

Pyrrha held a hand up to stop him. "He... probably just needs more rest-"

"Pyrrha!"

Neptune had all of one second to look confused before Yang suddenly bull-rushed her way into the tent, bowling him over in the process. Her eyes burned a wild, desperate red as she stepped over him into the ten's middle. Under one arm she held Ruby, and under the other, she held Weiss. "Pyrrha they are not waking up."

* * *

 _Why are you here?_

The circle of light grew smaller by degrees, allowing the crimson eyes all around to draw nearer as Weiss struggled to come up with something. Panic spread in her slowly, like the dark patterns creeping across the snow. But she was here to protect Ruby, though, not answer some... _thing's._.. questions.

She maintained her glyph and at length managed a shaky, "Stay away from her."

The woman moved towards Weiss without moving, the world simply shifting around her to bring her close - practically right up against the enormous glyph separating her from Weiss. Her gaze dipped down to Ruby, then fixed once more on the wide-eyed ice-blue staring up at her in dying defiance. Even hiding behind her impressive family sigil, the girl was an open book.

 _You can't protect her._

Those burning red eyes briefly flicked to the glowing glyph that spun between them. Looking Weiss dead in the eye, the woman reached out with a single hand, gently taking hold of the glyph's edge and halting its lazy spin. Its light began to drain away, up into her arm.

 _You can't even protect yourself..._

Weiss watched in horror as her glyph came apart. It didn't shatter- it just... dissolved. The remnants were absorbed by the woman whose words seemed to sink directly into her mind.

Maybe if she could get Ruby off the ground, she could glyph them to safety. Or at least out of this clearing. That would involve possibly turning her back on this woman, and every fiber of Weiss's being rejected that idea. They also rejected the idea of standing between her and Ruby, who she was obviously more interested in, but Weiss stood there anyway. Her fists shook as she tried to square her shoulders.

On the ground, Ruby started coughing. It made the light in the clearing expand and contract in choking spasms.

One expansion briefly illuminated the circle of eyes around them - Grimm, an endless sea of Grimm, every shape and every size, growing more and more agitated with the flickering light of each cough. The woman watched Ruby silently, her passive expression slowly dipping into a deeper and deeper frown. Something divided her attention for half a second, her focus then returning to Weiss.

 _Leave._

All the breath left Weiss's lungs in a rush, knocked out by the power in that word. The clearing vanished and she made a grab for something, anything solid as she toppled backwards into darkness.

* * *

Sage stepped forward, brow creased but arms out to relieve Yang of one of the unconscious girls.

Yang offered him Weiss, dragging him along with her over to the cot she'd been using just this morning. She laid Ruby down, then helped him maneuver Weiss onto the cot as well. There was hardly any room, and they'd resorted to sort of... half draping Weiss atop Ruby, but it was the best they could manage.

Pyrrha came to their side in and instant, pressing her hands to their foreheads. She brushed Ruby's hair back, biting her lip at the younger girl's creased brows. She had seemed fine just a short while ago... if a bit tired... "What happened?"

"I don't know!" Yang threw her arms up, nearly smacking Sage in the face. "I mean- she came down from the wall to see Jaune and just, dropped, and then Weiss tried to heal her and-" Yang put her face in her hands, breathing deep and exhaling slowly. "I can't reach either of them. I keep trying the- the aura thing but it's not... I can't..."

Empathy cut Pyrrha to her core, and she laid both hands on the brawler's shoulders, wishing she knew how to console her. "Yang-"

A mournful howl rose up in the distance. It sounded close - just outside the coliseum walls.

Neptune sighed from his place on the floor, pushing himself to his feet. "I'll take care of it."

As Neptune stepped towards the tent flap, Weiss's body jerked on the cot. Her eyes snapped open and she gasped, gripping onto the cot edge and part of Ruby's shirt, blue eyes full of wild panic as she scrambled to get up.

"Woah jeeze-" Startled to within an inch of her life, Yang scrambled as well, and with Pyrrha's help they helped Weiss sit up on the cot's edge. They stood on either side of her, bracing her as gently as they were able.

Though her heart was racing a mile a minute, Pyrrha managed to spare a composed, quiet look of thanks at Neptune and Sage as they quietly exited the tent.

Yang however looked about two seconds from crying with relief. "Weiss? What-"

"No!" Weiss's breathing was jagged and her voice broke as she struck out at her friends and turned to find Ruby lying still on the cot behind her. Her white hair fell in a tangle across her partner as she fumbled blindly for her hand, "No, I can't-"

She felt sick, and she clutched Ruby's hand, trying to summon up her aura enough to get back to that place.

Pyrrha held back in the face of Weiss's panic, but Yang lunged for her, dragging her away from her sister and off the cot entirely. "Weiss!" Yang held her from behind, both arms locked securely around Weiss's arms and middle. It felt like she was supporting her weight as much as she was holding her back from Ruby. "What's gotten into you?"

"Let go of me!" Weiss kicked out and tried to pry Yang's arms from around her stomach, but they were like steel cables holding her back. Worse, her mouth watered like she was going to throw up. "There's something- it's in there. Ruby's hurt and I can't- I have to go. Let _go!_ "

If anything, Weiss's words had the exact opposite effect, freezing Yang in her tracks. She barely noticed as the heiress's nails scraped against her aura, focused instead on what she'd been able to parse from Weiss's smattering of words.

"Something is... in Ruby?" Dread pooled in the brawler's stomach. Flashes of oily black and bone-white streaked with angry red filled her vision, but she stamped the memories back, absolutely refusing to believe there was any connection between... whatever was happening to Ruby now, and what had happened before. Sure her eyes had gone red, but she'd been fine just yesterday and there were none of those giant rats around and... and...

"Yang, you're crushing her-"

Yang snapped back to her senses at Pyrrha's firm hand on her arm, and she immediately loosened her death-grip on Weiss. "I'm sorry- I'm-"

"Weiss," Pyrrha interrupted Yang's stammered apologies, taking the coughing, choking heiress's hands in her own and trying to catch her gaze. "Weiss, even if Ruby is hurt, you are in no condition to..." Pyrrha's voice trailed off as another sound grew in the distance. It sounded like... a scream? And it was getting closer- fast-

Even Yang could hear it now. "What the..."

 _CRASH_

Neptune flew bodily through the side of the medical tent, through several crates, and straight through out the other side, rolling to a stop on the ground, face-first. A blurred streak of black surged through the new holes in the tent after him. Black rose petals fell in its wake.

Just visible through the gaping tear in the ten's side, Neptune lay in a heap with his face in the dirt. Above him, a Beowolf rose to stand on its hind legs. Bright silver eyes landed on Ruby, then the three girls next to her. Dipping its head, it snarled.

Weiss gaped at the Grimm. Her knees buckled and she sat down hard, her back to Ruby's cot.

"Is that..." Pyrrha kept her voice low, as though even the slightest noise might send the strange Beowolf into a frenzy, "the silver-eyed Grimm Ren and Nora mentioned?" She never took her eyes off of it, couldn't take her eyes off of it. The stolen silver was just so bright. "The one that used to be your dog?"

Yang stood stock still, her hands balled into trembling fists. Drei was long gone, and even though she wasn't sure exactly how, or why, somehow she knew that this... this semblance-stealing thing was the reason Ruby couldn't wake up. It had to be. Her own eyes flared crimson when she caught the Beowolf's silver-eyed gaze bouncing to Ruby every few seconds.

"Pyrrha." Yang spoke low as well, keeping her gazed trained on the Beowolf, who had locked eyes with her. In her peripheral vision, green eyes darted her way, confirming she had Pyrrha's attention. "Can you guard Ruby and Weiss?"

Pyrrha took stock of the surrounding area in record time, noting a teetering pile of scrap just beyond the snarling Grimm. "...Yes. I'll need a distraction."

"Oh, I'll distract it," Yang made the first move, cracking her knuckles and extending her gauntlets as she stepped up to the hole in the tent. "Hey dog-breath," she sank into a fighting stance, "if you think-"

The Beowolf responded before Yang even finished speaking, blasting forward in burst of unearthly speed, blind-siding her with a full-body tackle that sent them both flying into the distance.

Not even sparing a moment to cringe at the distinct crash of two bodies colliding with what was presumably the coliseum wall, Pyrrha dropped to the ground, sending a black pulse of polarity through the surrounding area. Forcing all of her focus into this one task, she dragged the entire nearby pile of scrap metal towards the tent, squinting against the screech and whine of metal twisting and tearing as she wrenched each piece to fit the form she needed - a sealed piecemeal dome, growing more secure by the second as she added every bit of metal within her reach to the exterior.

Weiss got one arm on the edge of the cot and levered herself up enough to find Ruby's hands and grip them as hard as she could. Pyrrha could do her thing- Weiss was going to get back into Ruby's dream/nightmare/whatever-it-was and help- try to help. She had to help. She closed her eyes, trying to shut out the storm of metal forming around them.

In the midst of trying to summon up enough of her aura to share, she had a nagging feeling... it couldn't be true, because naturally the Beowolf had torn in and was actively fighting with Yang... still, she had the faint, insane impression that behind the snarling and the throwing Yang and Neptune around, the silver eyed Beowolf wasn't there to hurt any of them.

Weiss didn't have time for this. Obviously it must have _seemed_ safe because one lousy Beowolf ranked so low on her list of concerns. Freakish red-eyed woman standing over her now defenseless partner vs. a single Grimm? It was no contest. She shoved the thoughts from her mind and doubled down, trying to extend her aura to Ruby.


	59. Conduit

**A/N: Hey! Last week ff was being kind of weird about sending out notifications, so if you missed the chapter, check it out. In an effort to somewhat improve on our abrupt chapter endings, we figured we'd just post all of this in a big chunk.**

 **Good luck, folks!**

 **\- Fiercesomest**

* * *

Qrow reached the coliseum first. He'd let the kids run ahead before he took off and now stood with both boots firm on the railing at the edge of the rows of seating, his dark hair stiff and ruffled from the flight. The Beowolf wasn't hard to find- it smashed into the wall beneath his perch, driving _Yang_ into the metal hard enough to crumple the metal panel.

It immediately leaped away from the ensuing blast of heat, pacing left and right as it watched Yang growl and shake herself off. Her hair glowed, and she looked one hundred and one percent ready to tear a certain stupid Beowolf limb from stupid limb. Resettling into a loose fighting stance, she took a few menacing steps forward. "You're gonna have to do better than- Hey!"

The Beowolf had turned as she spoke, eyeing Pyrrha's swirling dome of metal for all of a split second before speeding away, making a beeline for the tent rapidly vanishing behind a patchwork of steel.

Pyrrha grit her teeth at the streak of black aiming straight for her. The distraction hadn't worked. She just wasn't fast enough with polarity - Pyrrha switched plans on the fly, paying no heed to the sharp clangs of metal dropping all around them as she released her magnetism. With a split second prayer that nothing would go awry she stood tall, threw out one arm, and reached for the latent powers she'd only just begun experimenting with. The Beowolf was practically there already, rushing her out of any room for hesitation, moving even faster as the air pressure around them dropped.

Inches from collision, an enormous gust of wind dragged the Beowolf clean into the air, flinging it around and around in an endless circle that quickly grew in size and speed as a spiraling wall of clouds formed around the medical tent.

Back at the edge of the coliseum, Qrow leapt down to the ground.

"Hey," he shouted to get Yang's attention before she could tear off towards the storm forming near the camp. "Get that Beowolf to your sister. _Don't_ kill it."

Yang halted and whirled mid-step, turning to face her uncle with a confused red-eyed glare. "Wait- don't kill it?" A sheet of metal whizzed past her head, and she squinted, holding an arm up against the wind to better look back at the literal tornado that had formed around the medical tent. That was... certainly one way to keep Ruby safe. But... since when had Pyrrha's semblance involved wind? Yang grimaced - she could just make out a dark form whipping by with every unyielding revolution of the maelstrom's wall of wind, arc after arc of lighting just barely missing its mark. "It's... probably not me you need to be telling that."

"Yeah," Qrow said under his breath as he watched the localized tornado. It looked like Nikos was really warming up to her powers. Some of the tents were tearing free from their tent pegs and flying up into the air. Debris whipped by fast enough dent the railing near where Yang and Qrow stood.

 _Clang!_

Sage's sword deflected another chunk of metal from Neptune as the two tried to assist in the hunt. They were spending more time not getting leveled s they were chasing the beowolf, though. A shriek rang out as- was that a vending machine?- hurtled past them without an inch to spare.

"Okay, new plan," Qrow put his arm around Yang for a second, and ducked his head in close, "we get in there and tell her to knock it off. And by 'we', I mean 'you'."

There was a lot that could go wrong in this situation, after all, and he wasn't about to try their luck.

Yang squinted at her uncle as best she could through her windblown hair. "Uh huh. And by 'get in there' you mean... what, just walk right on in? Take a lovely stroll through the tornado?"

"Yep."

Yang squinted even harder at her uncle, "...Okay," she expelled the tail end of her word as a resolute sigh, breaking away from his grasp and striding headlong into the wind storm.

A heavy gust forced her to stop about halfway there - she could already feel the wind trying to sweep her right off her feet. What she would give for one of Weiss's black glyphs right now... or a hair tie. Pushing her hair out of her face for the umpteenth time, Yang glared up at the storm barring her from her sister.

Small bits and pieces of metal and rocky debris pelted her nonstop, feeding through her aura into her semblance bit by bit... not that strength would do her any good against being yanked bodily into the air, and with no incendiary rounds to control her trajectory, the ground was absolutely where she needed to stay...

Indistinct shouting in the distance momentarily pulled Yang's attention from the storm - she spotted Neptune waving wildly at her from his hiding place behind Sage. He was... pointing at something... Yang turned to look just in time for a pack of crackers to smack her dead in the face, but it was probably the _entire vending machine_ behind it that he was trying to warn her about. "Back so soon, huh?" Grinning, the brawler braced herself for impact.

From afar, Neptune grimaced at the ensuing crunch of metal audible even over the howling winds. He hunkered down further behind Sage, watching wide-eyed as Yang pressed forward, using the weight of the machine to ground herself... for about ten feet.

There was no way to warn her about the stray section of rebar sweeping across the ground straight for her, and all he could do was watch as it struck her mid-stride, just hard enough to sweep her off her feet and send both her and the vending machine hurtling up into the air.

Acting on instinct, Neptune grabbed Sage's arm, stepped out from behind his guard, and took aim with his trident.

Yang had no idea what hit her - all she knew was one moment she was hurtling head over heels through the air swearing up a storm worse than the one she'd just been battling, and the next she'd been knocked straight into the storm wall and clean through it, landing much to her chagrin, directly on top of Weiss.

The heiress hadn't even noticed the earlier rush of canvas as the medical tent got caught in the storm, and she certainly didn't notice Yang until she crashed full force on top of her and Ruby. She slammed down on the edge of the cot so hard it cracked- or her ribs cracked. Either way, everything went black for a second and when it came back she'd lost her hold on that sick feeling from earlier and was on her elbows, throwing up a dark liquid on the packed dirt next to the cot while Yang scrambled to get off.

* * *

Qrow stood back, his ragged cape flapping in the unnatural wind. He'd watched Yang vanish into the stormy column of dust and debris whirling around the medical tent. "C'mon..."

They'd get the beowolf to Ruby, but he doubted the mutt could do the actual transfer. Heck, it might have shot back here to take her down and claim the rest of her soul for its own Grimm purposes. Who knew? Either way, they'd probably need someone to act as a conduit to get that part of Ruby's soul back into her.

And it definitely wasn't going to be him, if he could help it.

* * *

"Weiss?!" The tornado contorted under Pyrrha's brief lapse in concentration thanks to Yang's spectacular arrival, the school vending machine now joining the Beowolf and Yatsuhashi's stag in circling overhead, and the sounds of Weiss retching. "Yang- what-"

"You have to stop this storm!" Yang shouted over the howling wind at Pyrrha while she fretted over Weiss, grabbing her hair and holding it out of the way.

"I- what?"

"It's destroying the camp!"

Pyrrha paled, dropping her arm at once. "I- I'm sorry! That's not what I-" A violent crack of lightning drowned out the remainder of her apology, arcs of blue electricity coursing through the storm as it slowed and contorted further, collapsing in on itself.

Yang barely heard the lightning, she absolutely didn't hear the small clang of something ricocheting off of a large airborne vending machine, but there was no way she could miss the streak of black dropping right past her, bright silver staring her down for a split-second eternity. "You-" It was already gone, the empty cot where Ruby had been lying seconds prior already flying into the weakening wall of wind amidst a sea of black petals.

* * *

Qrow started running when he saw the streak of black. The storm was dying down, so that was good, but the beowolf- he gave a groan of frustration and put on extra speed, dodging chunks of metal as the whirlwind dropped them from the sky.

The Grimm had Ruby's limp form in its mouth by the shoulder, stumbling and tripping over itself as it ran, gunning for the doorway to the underground maintenance corridors and ultimately the back exit... that is, until two figures appeared there.

Blake and Yatsuhashi, both panting from their full sprint back, stopped short and stared in shock as the Beowolf shifted course towards the main entrance, only to be halted almost immediately by the vending machine landing inches from its face, forcing it to tuck and curl around Ruby as it all but gutted the machine with its shoulder spines in the unavoidable collision. Forcing itself back to its feet, the Beowolf leaned back against what was left of the battered machine for a moment, silver eyes darting all around. Qrow in one direction, Yang in another, Neptune and Sage in yet another. Panting hard, it dropped Ruby and stood over her on all fours, teeth bared and bristling.

The only direction it didn't look was up.

There was a flicker in the space above the Grimm, and half an instant later a steel spike stabbed at the base of its neck with deadly precision. Neo dropped out of the air, feet bracing on the creature's spiked shoulders.

It had no time to react, simply crumpling atop Ruby like the world's angriest Beowolf blanket.

Qrow pulled up short a half dozen yards off. The silver eyed Beowolf had just dropped. Just like that. He stared at the downed Grimm and the girl perched on its shoulder spines.

Neo leveraged her small weight so the Beowolf toppled sideways a bit, taking most of its weight off of the girl underneath. She stepped aside, dusting off her hands like it was a job well done.

Yang did not pull up short. She did not stop until both of her fists were buried in Neo's tattered collar, yanking the smaller girl clean off the ground. She heard fabric rip. She didn't care. She had no idea why Neo was here right now. She didn't _care._ "What have you done?" Yang forced the words past clenched teeth, licks of fire flaring from her head and shoulders as she held Neo inches from her own face. " _What have you done?!_ "

"Yang!" Blake was already at Ruby's side, checking her for injuries, but her eyes were trained on the wolf, "It's still alive."

"What?" Yang dropped Neo without a second glance, scrambling to kneel beside Ruby as well. From here she could clearly see the Beowolf's silver eyes, wide and wild, evidence that the pint-sized maniac had not in fact snuffed out half of her little sister's soul before her very eyes.

Neo scrambled back and flickered to the top of the vending machine, momentarily out of Yang's reach.

Sage gripped his sword, ready in case the Grimm decided to get back up.

Qrow joined Ruby's teammates. The Beowolf wasn't moving, and it was alive. That was convenient. He glanced at the small girl perched warily on top of the wrecked vending machine. He didn't exactly have time to spend wondering what her deal was. Ruby was looking paler by the minute. "Alright, someone grab the Schnee kid."

"I'll get her," Neptune offered, already sprinting towards the medical tent as he spoke.

Caught between tracking the Grimm and the alarmingly skilled girl atop the vending machine, Yatsuhashi took his place next to Sage, similarly inclined to draw his weapon and keep it at the ready.

With Yang too busy gathering her sister into her arms and choking back tears, Blake took it upon herself to ask the obvious, arching a single brow at Qrow. "What do you need Weiss for?"

"We're going to siphon whatever part of Ruby's soul got stuck in this thing," he nudged the Beowolf with his boot without looking away from his nieces, "back into her."

Back at the mostly undisturbed site of the medial tent, Weiss was recovering fast, or trying to.

"Get off me, I'm fine," Weiss pushed Pyrrha's arms off as she levered herself onto the nearby low cot. Throwing up had interrupted her panic-fueled attempt to get back to Ruby enough for her to calm down and think. At least she thought enough to a) regret the chocolate from earlier and b) let someone else handle her partner for a minute while she caught her breath.

Pyrrha hovered at her side in case she retched again, "But Weiss-"

"Weiss!" Neptune stumbled through the ripped tent opening, but stopped short at the sight of her, panting and pale, standing near a puddle of half-digested chocolate on the ground.

"Neptune?" Pyrrha went to him, peering around him as best she could to see the small group standing a fair ways away, "Did they get the Grimm?"

"Yeah! Well, sort of?" Neptune rubbed the back of his head, his eyes falling to the ground as he elaborated, "Ruby is still down though... and that hunstman guy is asking for Weiss."

Weiss looked at him like he had to be joking before pushing herself to her feet. So much for leaving Ruby to someone else.

"You want her to _what?_ "

Yang's voice carried across the coliseum as Neptune offered a hand to Weiss despite her supremely irritated expression. "Are you okay to walk?"

Weiss shot him a glare but didn't have enough energy to do any more damage than that as she strode past his offered hand.

In the middle of the cluster of people near the vending machine, Qrow ran his hand through his hair, "Look, whatever she was trying to do, it split her soul. At least part of it is in this thing. If we kill it, her soul _might_ rejoin its other half or quarter or whatever, but it might just vanish, and that's not a chance I'm particularly willing to take."

He caught sight of Weiss heading their way. She didn't look great, but her eyes were clear and she held her head high, still ignoring Neptune, who still seemed worried that she might drop.

Qrow turned to Yang, "Your sister's soul _will_ seek its other half. Whether or not it can get there is the issue, so we're just giving it an easy pathway," he gestured to the heiress with his thumb, "She connected to her earlier, right? It'll be easiest for her."

Weiss shook out her hair, as she joined the group, "What will be easiest for me?"

Blake's mouth was set in a thin line as she looked to Weiss. "He wants you to be a conduit for them," she motioned to Ruby and the Beowolf.

"I'll do it," Yang said at once, "I can do it."

"Shut up, Yang," Weiss snapped without much bite. Assuming the man had some legitimate reason for choosing her over her teammate, she fixed her gaze on Blake. "What kind of conduit?"

"What does it matter?!" Yang snapped back at Weiss, then rounded on her uncle, "I said I'll do it, now tell me what I have to do to get my sister back."

"Keep her still, then, okay?" Qrow grabbed Yatsuhashi. From the looks of Ruby, they didn't have a lot of time. "Hey, big guy, drag the wolf over here. Princess, you want your hand here, over its heart, and here, over hers. Yang," he knelt so he could look her dead in the eye, "you want to ask questions? Fine. You want to take charge? I understand. I really do. She's your sister. But first, whose got a better track record of dealing with Grimm poison, you or Schnee Junior?"

"My _name_ is Weiss," Weiss scowled to cover her repulsion as her hand sank in the stiff black fur on the Beowolf's chest.

"What do you know about what we went through-" Yang spat with fire in her eyes, ready to go however many rounds it took for Qrow to _listen_. At least, until she felt a gentle touch on her arm.

"Yang," with that single word Blake had her partner's full attention, "Weiss has brought Ruby back to you before." When Yang opened her mouth to protest, Blake squeezed her arm and kept going, "You know you can trust her. Ruby will need you _here_ if things go badly."

Yang snapped her jaw shut, gritting her teeth over her inability to find a response that didn't sound petulant. With a final imploring look at Weiss, she bowed her head in resignation.

Weiss was determined not to lose her partner, and it showed in her eyes. She glanced away from Yang to Blake, "Please don't let this thing bite my arm off."

The Beowolf's chest rumbled under her hand in one continuous growl.

"We'll take care of it," Qrow edged close enough that Weiss could smell the alcohol on his breath as he explained, "You're like a bridge. You want Ruby's aura to cross in that direction," he gripped the wrist of her hand over Ruby's heart. "Her aura and nothing else, got it?"

Nothing _else_? Weiss remembered the black competing with Ruby's red during her attempt to heal the dog. Drei. The creature emitting the gravelly rumble under her hand was hard to reconcile with the fluffy white pet he used to be.

"What do I do if I... go in," there had to be a better way to explain that, but Weiss didn't know it, "and she's still there." At Qrow's blank look, she elaborated, "The woman."

"The woman?" his brow creased. Something seemed to dawn on him, and he turned pale, "Did she have red eyes?"

Weiss gave a short nod, her fingers gripping the front of Ruby's shirt.

"Yeah. Okay," Qrow's eyes scanned the four of them- Weiss, Yang, Ruby, the hunk of growling fur and bone that was the Beowolf- as if trying to come up with an idea. "You just worry about putting the pieces together, kid. You got all the warnings when your professors first told you how to do this, right?"

As much as Weiss would have liked an hour long tutorial about how to accomplish this, or at least an answer to her question about the woman who was clearly bad news, she wasn't sure her partner would last. She wasn't sure how she was even breathing now. Her chest was cold, even through her clothes. So without answering Qrow, Weiss took a deep breath, summoning up her aura. She would just have to deal with whatever came her way. _Come on, Ruby._

At the edge of the group, Sage watched in trepidation. Neo leaned over the top of the vending machine, intrigued.

"Weiss," Blake called softly enough that it hopefully wouldn't break the heiress's concentration, "if you do get pulled in… make sure _you_ come back as well."

Weiss made a dismissive sound, but didn't bother with much more than that as her aura surrounded her in a soft white glow. She closed her eyes as the stadium seemed to slide away.

She'd seen enough ruthless power plays in her own family to understand Qrow's insistence that she be the one to siphon Ruby's aura back into her- Yang was a member of the family. Even in the most desperate times of the Great War, siblings weren't allowed to serve with the same unit. That way if operations collapsed, at least the family back home might have one child survive. Obviously Qrow wouldn't want to lose both his nieces in the same span of minutes.

Weiss, on the other hand, was more or less expendable. There wasn't time to let it rub her the wrong way, though. As often as she had been on the receiving end of aura healing, and as hard as she'd been trying to support Ruby with it the past few days, she knew that they had no idea what they were doing. Qrow seemed to have some knowledge of the operation and was obviously much more wary of it. That only confirmed Weiss's impression that they were playing with fire, and that there might be some sort of consequences to go with it. Maybe something beyond the emotional scarring that came with dropping into someone's nightmares, even.

As she concentrated, she felt the stir of her partner's aura on her left, from the Beowolf. Ugh, the combination of the familiar warmth and the unwashed black fur made the hair at the back of her neck prickle up. There was another presence there, too. The black that had competed with Ruby's aura before. It wasn't hard to tell the two apart, though, and it didn't attempt to make the crossing.

The red glow mixed with her white, moving slow, like syrup, up her arm towards Ruby's unconscious form. Making sure her partner's aura travelled one way wasn't going to be difficult, considering she could barely sense anything on her right. Dust, she needed to make this happen faster. Wasn't Ruby's semblance speed? Why was her aura so slow?

No sooner had the thought crossed her mind, when the red of Ruby's aura reached her chest. Her breathing seized and she clenched her fist in Ruby's shirt as sharp pain blazed across her arms, the back of her shoulders. For a split second, the red burned hot, outshining her white aura for a moment as it ran in a torrent into Ruby. Weiss gasped and must have flung herself backwards because she was falling and strong hands caught her. There was an overwhelming taste in her mouth like copper and- of all things- strawberries, and it burned like she'd swallowed a mouthful of hot sauce. Not only like she'd swallowed it, but like she'd washed her face in it and tried to _breathe_ it. Her eyes burned, her chest lungs burned. She pressed her palms to her eyes, trying to get it to stop.

"Hey," the voice came from far away, "here, take her."

Sage dropped his sword to scoop Weiss up. Her breathing hitched, coming fast and short, and her frame was taught with pain as she curled against his coat.

Qrow, after handing the heiress off to one of the big students, knelt by his youngest niece. Her brow was furrowed. If it hadn't been a life and death matter, she would have looked like she needed to sneeze, but the red of her aura still glowed around the edges of her skin. Qrow's hand closed over the grip of his weapon as he urged her, "Come on, kid."

* * *

There was no whisper of wind among the empty branches of the black, thorn-twined trunks. The circle of light had dimmed so much that the thousand red eyes seemed to cast their own glare over the girl in the snow. In a few more moments, that pale light would be gone altogether.

Except... it wasn't. Seconds slipped by, but the circle stopped dimming, and the light didn't go out.

At the center of the pack of Grimm sat the six-tailed creature, her head bowed towards the girl half-covered in snow, the small light that remained reflecting in her red eyes.

The light pulsed, prompting the creature to straighten its posture.

All at once, a blinding rush of warm red erupted from the girl's back, briefly bathing the area in a flash of crimson light.

The creature watched, still as a statue as the light coalesced, taking a shape much like its own... but larger, heavier, and shaggier... a white dog, with silver eyes.

No sooner had it taken form, then the dog dropped to the ground in a confused heap, scrabbling back up to his feet at once. He seemed dazed - at least, until he noticed Ruby.

Barely paying any notice to his audience, the dog whimpered and cried, licking her face and nosing her shoulder in earnest, over and over, ultimately plopping down in the snow beside her in sheer exhaustion. Not that it kept him from continuing to lick her face from his new position.

Six tails twitched in curiosity.

You want to help her?

Ears twisting like crazy to pinpoint a nonexistent voice, the dog looked up, seemingly noticing his company for the first time. Lacking the energy to lift his head, he simply whimpered.

The creature tilted her head, slowly rising to stand.

You'll die.

Silver eyes never strayed from watchful crimson as the dog continued to whimper and nuzzle Ruby's face.

Eventually, those crimson eyes slid shut, and the creature took a step forward. The forest and every Grimm within seemed to hold its breath as she dipped her head, lightly touching the dog's nose with the tip of her own.

The dog stared, wide-eyed... then exploded, the light from which it had formed rushing right back into Ruby with enough force to clear the snow from the surrounding area. The circle of light around her flickered and flashed, expanding in one fell swoop that decimated every Grimm in its wake.

Only the woman remained, her expression placid, despite being forced from her previous form. Unwillingly bathed in the light of day, she began to sink into her own shadow, pausing about halfway down to reach for the girl still lying on the ground.

"Leave," she spoke aloud, pale fingertips stopping just short of red-tipped hair, "before you forget how."

Ruby groaned and lifted her head a little, just enough to get a bleary look at the grass and leaves that had been exposed by the rush of light. There was a shadow too...

Her vision blurred.

She blinked and found herself gazing up into a blue, cloudy sky.

The arms around her tensed.

"...Ruby?"

Ruby blinked again, trying to clear her vision as she became aware of the cold air in her lungs, and the warm someone who was holding her. Her voice came out sounding like she hadn't used it in days, "... Yang?"

Yang's voice was hoarse for a very different reason, a few drops falling from her face and landing smack between Ruby's eyes. Her _silver_ eyes. "Hey sis..."

It was all she could get out before she dissolved into tears, crushing her little sister in a fierce hug.

Beside them, Blake heaved a sigh of relief, half-smiling as she placed a hand on Ruby's shoulder. "How do you feel?"

Ruby almost couldn't speak under the sheer pressure of Yang's embrace. She squeaked out, "... is Pyrrha okay...?"

Somehow the deflection didn't quite work as well as usual. That dream had been worse and more confusing than the others, and her eyes went blurry again. Her hands found her sister's sleeve and gripped like her life depended on it.

A few yards off, Weiss was shoving Sage away, only to have her knees buckle under her. She scrubbed her eyes as the burning sensation faded, and she tried and failed to get up.

"Hey, kid- Weiss," a hand on her shoulder to stop her. It was Qrow, kneeling beside her. "Take it easy."

The heiress bristled but relented, sitting back on the ground for a minute to get her bearings.

"She's okay?" when she spoke it came out shaky, and she shrugged Qrow's hand off more out of principle than anything else.

"Yeah, well, she's awake, at least," he got to his feet. "You did good."

Blake stepped back from Ruby and Yang to give them space, stealing a quick glance at the vending machine. Unsurprisingly, Neo was nowhere to be found. She tried not to think about Drei as she passed the disintegrating Beowolf on her way to check on Weiss, ignoring its ashes slowly rising into the overcast sky.

Taking Blake's lead Neptune quietly pulled at Sage's arm, motioning for them to start cleaning up. Sheathing his sword, Yatsuhashi joined them.

Standing beside Jaune's cot in the ruins of the medical tent, Pyrrha watched from afar as the three boys started to clean up the mess she had created. Her hand clenched in Jaune's shirt. She hadn't helped at all. Thankfully things seemed to have turned out fine but... all she'd done was make things worse. That seemed to be all she knew how to do now. Pushing her bitter thoughts aside, Pyrrha focused, calling upon her polarity once more. Metal lazily flew from the surrounding area and coalesced in a pile before her. If she was going to make a mess of things... the least she could do was clean up after herself.

Weiss meanwhile fixed her posture and fussed with her hair in an attempt to appear dignified despite sitting exhausted on the bare ground. Yang was crying and she couldn't tell about Ruby. She gave Blake a look, "Please tell me I didn't go through all that only for Yang to suffocate her."

With a weary, amused shake of her head, Blake took at seat beside Weiss. She'd seen Ruby like this before, in the dead of night back at Beacon - that same haunted glint of silver after waking from horrific nightmares Blake never would have expected from such a positive soul.

Fortunately, Yang was never far... though, the unbidden thought that Ruby may have suffered nightmares like that during the weeks she'd forced the sisters apart steamrolled Blake with a fresh wave of guilt. She took a deep breath. Ruby had already forgiven her. The team was together now. Ruby's soul was together now. They were going to be fine.

As if speaking it aloud would somehow force her assertion to remain true, Blake returned Weiss's look with a half-smile and stated with full certainty, "They're going to be fine."

* * *

 **A/N: Yeah! We got Ruby out of there! With almost zero casualties, even. (RIP, Drei.)**

 **SO this marks the week we'll be gone for a while. Keep an eye on your inboxes- we'll update in a big chunk when we get to another okay breaking point.**

 **In the meantime, keep being awesome!**

 **\- Fiercesomest**


	60. 1 Sneeze 2 Sneeze Red Sneeze Blue Sneeze

**A/N: Hey guys! It's been a while since we posted a chapter for this but here you go, longer by popular request ;3**

 **Thanks as always for reading and enjoy!**

 **Hugs!**

 **D**

* * *

Within the hour, after Qrow yelled at the boys for picking up trash instead of building a fire so they could eat a decent meal, a roaring bonfire blazed in the area near the medical tent. There was no shortage of flammable wreckage that had been buried in the junk piles around the stadium, and most of it was accessible now thanks to Pyrrha's impromptu tornado. Sage brought a wooden chair down against the ground. It splintered and cracked as he broke it apart and threw the pieces on the fire.

Weiss and Ruby were both still semi out of commission, so neither was sure where the bowls of rice and roast venison that were passed to them even came from, but they weren't complaining. The heiress didn't even care that they were sitting on a roughly bench-shaped piece of metal covered in rust, even though it would surely leave a difficult to remove residue on their clothes.

Ruby ate with all the grace of a starved raccoon. The deer was gamey and a little charred, but she polished her bowl off in the blink of an eye and raised it for Chef Neptune (as he had insisted he be called) to see, "Seconds, please!"

Robin, who had emerged from the safety of a crate full of packing peanuts after the excitement had died down and was currently stationed firmly in Blake's lap, whimpered at her own venison-less bowl and tried to put her face directly into Blake's food to get at hers.

Arching a brow, Blake tipped her remaining food in to Robin's bowl. She wasn't nearly as hungry as-

"Thirds please!" Yang's bowl joined Ruby's in the air.

Blake tilted a smile past Weiss at Ruby and Yang. Understandably, Ruby's big sister hadn't left her side the entire day. Granted, most of that time had been spent crashing and sleeping in an exhausted pile with Weiss, but Blake hadn't minded. She'd left the three to rest while she helped Ren and Neptune prepare the meal their apparently ravenous group was currently tearing through with ease. Ren had mentioned something about it being a while since anyone here had eaten a solid meal like this, but it was still a sight to see.

"Coming right up!" Neptune sang, flitting over to them with his makeshift tray piled high with lightly charred cuts of meat in one hand and a gigantic mixing bowl of rice in the other.

"I still can't believe you guys found a rice cooker in the wreckage, _and_ got it to work." Yang nudged Neptune as he overfilled their bowls, peering over his head to marvel at the respectably sized steaming appliance currently connected to his trident.

"Mm!" Ruby voiced agreement through a mouthful of food. She swallowed and craned her neck to see how the thing was connected to his weapon, "did you have to use a power adapter to make it run?"

Neptune nodded, looking extremely pleased with himself. "It originally ran on small specially manufactured red dust batteries, so it took a bit of reworking to get it to run off of electricity, most of which involved designing a converter-"

Even though Ruby seemed absolutely riveted by the complex explanation, Yang tuned Neptune out by the first word - not for lack of interest, but more out of a desire to keep an eye on the people around her.

Outof everyone present, it was Blake, sitting peacefully with Robin in her lap, who looked the most at home... which, she guessed made sense considering her entire life before Beacon. Going off of all the little details her partner had gifted her over the years, it made sense that Blake was already more than used to living this way. Tents, hunts, cookouts, lookout shifts for Grimm, the whole nine yards...

Speaking of which, Yang could just barely make out Yatsuhashi and Fox up on the rim of the coliseum, both having taken heaping bowls of food with them on watch.

Ruby seemed worlds better already, but Yang couldn't help noticing how Weiss seemed... off. Not that she could put a finger on exactly how or why. She wasn't the only one, either. Pyrrha also seemed off, her head bowed slightly as she spaced out next to Sage, Ren, and Nora, the latter of which was currently pestering Qrow with questions.

Thankfully, there was still no sign of Neo.

"She bridged from a Grimm?" Nora gaped at Qrow and looked across the fire at Weiss in awe and horror. The heiress ignored her and continued resolutely scraping the sides of her bowl clean with her spoon. "A Grimm that was still alive? And that had part of Ruby's _soul_ in it? And Ruby almost died?"

"Whoa, yeah, okay," Qrow put a hand on Nora's face and pushed her gently back to normal speaking distance, "I was going to put this off till after dinner, but hey, since you're all here."

He braced his hands on his knees and stood up, a little stiff with the cold, as the others quieted down. Qrow looked them over, the whole ragged bunch in the light of the flames. His niece's eyes were curious silver again. Ugh, public speaking was never his thing. He ran his hand through his hair, resting the other on his belt at his hip.

"Look, none of you are pushovers. You've survived all this and if you're lucky you'll have half a chance of living normal lives before anything gets really crazy," he shrugged, "not great odds considering, but still. So you ought to know a little more about aura healing than what I bet Oz told you down in that vault."

"Vault?" Ruby lowered her spoon an inch.

Weiss gave a tired half-toss of her hair at Ruby's ignorance, her hands cradling the residual heat of the bowl in her lap, "The special cases ward. Under the school."

Suddenly Ruby remembered. She remembered lying on what might have been a cold, metal examination table but for the carpet of her red rose petals beneath her. Weiss held her hand to try the aura thing and Ozpin stood over them for... some reason. There hadn't been any nurses or anything, just him and Weiss.

Yang's thoughts turned to a similar place. Barricaded in a room far beneath the school, Goodwitch standing outside like a sentry. Sitting on the bare floor as her semblance raged in a fit of flame so fierce that anything in the room with her had either melted or turned to ash. Everything but Blake...

"All Ozpin and Oobleck really told us was that it was an old, forgotten technique," Blake spoke up, arching a skeptical brow at Qrow.

"And that we should try to only use it as a last resort," Yang added with a shrug.

"They mentioned the whole dying thing too right?" Qrow crossed his arms, pacing to the edge of the fire to warm up. He gave Ruby a look, "Probably they skipped the part where you might leave a piece of your soul in someone- or apparently some _thing_ \- else, depending."

Ruby turned red and shrank into her cape. Yeah, aura healing Drei hadn't gone very well that last time. She knew he was gone, but she tried not to think of what had happened to him exactly.

"It was mentioned that _we_ might perish, as the ones infected with Grimm toxins," Ren spoke up, putting a hand to his chest, "and that those aiding us were at risk of becoming infected as well..."

"Nothing about leaving bits of yourself behind though," Yang added, throwing an arm around Ruby's shoulders and giving her arm a conciliatory pat.

"Okay, gross," Qrow frowned and went for his flask. There was something about the word 'bits'. "Just... don't do it if you can avoid it. Unless you want to risk swapping bodies or getting stuck, or who knows. Mixing semblances. Whatever."

He returned to his seat at the edge of the fire.

Weiss wasn't in the mood to deal with this sort of half-baked after-the-fact explanation. She deposited her bowl on the bench and got up, "I'm going back to the tent."

"Weiss," Ruby turned in her seat, but didn't get up as her partner stalked off. She'd messed up big time, losing some of her soul. To get it back, Drei… well, he was gone. Probably Weiss was mad about that too- Ruby had seen her fawn over him when she thought no one was looking more than once. A fist-sized rock settled in her stomach. She looked back at her uncle, "... we didn't get stuck or anything, though, so it's okay, right?"

Across the way, her uncle shrugged, "All I'm saying is there's a reason huntsmen and huntresses quit teaching aura healing."

"And you know about all of this... how, exactly?" Yang tilted her head at her uncle, a grin slowly spreading across her face, "What, did you and dad swap bodies for a day?"

"Sure, joke about it," Qrow fixed his gaze on Yang and jabbed his thumb at his chest, "I never share auras, and you should follow my lead. Especially after what almost happened to your sister."

Nora broke in with a smoothing double-hand motion, "I mean, that was kind of bad, but what about all the other times when it works? It doesn't seem like such a big deal if you're careful."

"Oh yeah, it's only your _soul_ on the line," sarcasm dripped off Qrow's words and he lifted his flask to his mouth, "'Just be careful'."

"Maybe we can finish talking about this tomorrow?" Ruby grimaced, "It's been... kind of a long day," she gestured between herself and Yang and Blake, "At least, for us, right?"

As Yang nodded in agreement, Blake frowned in thought, amber eyes drifting from the sky, with the sun just passing its highest point, down to their ragtag group. She... honestly wasn't that tired. Hunting down a meal, tracking a Grimm, cooking - it felt like a regular day outside the city walls.

Everyone else seemed at least somewhat placated by the hearty meal, but it was hard to miss the bags under Ruby's eyes, or Yang's faltering grin, Neptune and Sage's thinly veiled exhaustion, Pyrrha's complete absence from the conversations going on around her... At the very least, Ren seemed fine, and the only one harboring more energy than Nora was the little Faunus making short work of any remaining food within her reach. "Tomorrow sounds good," Blake said simply, gently combing her fingers through Robin's hair.

Yang set aside her bowl of thirds. Suddenly she didn't feel quite as hungry. "I guess we should check on Weiss. Make sure she's not shedding rose petals," she nudged Ruby, flashing a smile that didn't quite mask her genuine concern.

Ruby sagged against her sister in relief that everyone was going to stop arguing. "That's a good idea," she mustered a half-smile, rubbing the back of her neck, "She'll be even more mad at me if that happens."

People didn't really mix semblances, though, did they? She couldn't remember any stories about it. Either way, as she got up something about the cold and the campfire, and maybe the pepper on the venison, combined, and she gave a short, sharp sneeze and subsequently wiped her nose, "Ugh."

* * *

"Ugh," Weiss searched her coat pocket for her handkerchief. With her free hand, she activated Myrtenaster enough to light the inside of the supply tent with a pale blue glow. The interior looked like, well, like a hurricane had come through. After someone had located the tent itself, the boys had shoveled the rest of the supplies in. Fortunately they'd had brains enough between them to put the blankets and sleeping bags they recovered on top of everything else.

Of course, she could have slept in the medical tent, like they'd done that afternoon, but this promised a touch more privacy and Weiss was feeling far from social. She shoved some boxes out of the way to make space to lay out one of the balled up sleeping bags.

* * *

The campfire quieted down after RBY took Robin and left for the storage tent. Ren was the first to stand, offering a hand to Neptune and Sage with cleanup and food storage. Pyrrha stayed put, her eyes trained on the ground as the others milled about doing useful things, silent even as someone gently lifted her empty bowl from her hands. It was a solid hand on her shoulder that finally pulled her to the present. Pyrrha looked up to find Ren watching her with a worry-tinged smile.

"Nora and I will take the overnight watch." His tone was as gentle as his touch, but his words left no room for argument. "You should get some sleep."

Pyrrha nodded, idly rubbing the metal covering her arms. "I will." As Ren turned to leave the camp, she looked around, finding the sun already setting over the edge of the coliseum, broken rays of fading light sweeping across the mess her storm had created.

Reluctantly, she looked to the only other person who remained sitting around the fireside.

"...Qrow," she called, dodging his gaze at the last second by looking to the battered medical tent. Jaune was still in there, as he had been ever since attempting the very thing Qrow seemed so dead set against. Pyrrha folded her arms, ignoring the dull ache in her back. "About aura healing..." green eyes tentatively met red, "Just how dangerous is it?"

The fire crackled. It had burned down quite a bit, and the shadows cast by the low, flickering flames stretched out behind them, blending into the darkness.

"You're from Mistral, right?" Qrow asked after a time. He tilted his flask, giving it a wry look. "Ever hear of a place called Shiragiku?" At Pyrrha's silence, he shrugged, "Not the catchiest name. Plus it got wiped out about a century and a half ago."

Pyrrha remained silent a little longer, waiting to see if he would continue. When he didn't she sighed and folded her arms. "Shiragiku, the city lost to sorrow," she watched the licks of flame dancing just above the glowing wood, wondering how many times this particular myth had been shared over a campfire just like this one.

"The legend goes that long ago, before the great war, before the four kingdoms were even established, there was a beautiful, peaceful city called Shiragiku. It's said that a great healer lived there, one so skilled in the medicinal arts that even the injured from neighboring towns were brought to him from time to time. But... even his unmatched skills had a limit. The only person he was unable to help was his own son, who had been sickly since birth. When his son died, they buried him in a nearby field of white flowers, and the father, so stricken with grief, refused to leave his grave. For three days, the man sat in the field of flowers and wept, and on the third night, his grief had grown so powerful it summoned a lone Grimm, one so vicious and powerful that it killed the man and everyone the entire city."

Any Mistralian child who had ever been to a funeral knew the tale. "It's why those white flowers, named shiragiku after the city, are used in our cremation rituals. The blossom is meant to represent the grief of those who cared for the departed, and burning it along with the body ensures that only happy memories remain, granting protection from the Grimm in times of loss." Wrapping her arms a little tighter around herself, Pyrrha looked to Qrow. Some of the dots were starting to connect, but she couldn't quite make out the full picture. "I assume this is another one of those legends that actually happened? Like the Maidens?"

Qrow gave a short laugh and took a slow breath in through his teeth. The Mistral champion knew her stuff. "Not quite like the maidens."

Before Pyrrha could speak again, he continued, "The city got wiped out, alright, but not by some super-powered Grimm. Sounds like your version's still got the guy as a top-notch healer. That was right too," Qrow reached and picked up a broken chair leg from the pile of debris to add to the fire, "Want to guess how he was so good?"

Another dot connected. "He... used aura healing?"

"He _lived_ aura healing. Used it to heal scrapes, deliver newborns, pretty much anything you could think of. And he taught it to anyone who would sit still long enough to learn," Qrow threw the chair leg on the fire."That whole town had strong aura links, at least all of its Huntsmen and Huntresses did. When the link is strong enough and the one you're linked to gets killed..." he shrugged and settled his elbows on his knees, slouching forward in the warmth of the fire. "It's like tripping a breaker switch. Everything running on that circuit just cuts off, easy as turning out a light."

Pyrrha squinted at him, trying to follow his explanation to its logical conclusion. "So you're telling me that... the Grimm killing that man... killed everyone he was connected to as well? Instantly?"

"The ones with a strong enough connection, yeah," Qrow watched the embers at the edge of the fire. They flickered, red slowly fading to black. "and anyone connected to the ones connected to him. With a weaker link, I dunno. Probably they felt it and lived at least long enough for more Grimm to get there after most of the town dropped."

For a while there was no sound but the low crackle of the embers and the dull shift of Pyrrha's hands idly rubbing over her reformed gauntlets. Her arms ached. She had the full picture more or less... and it didn't help at all. Sharing auras led to connections which led to shared experience of injury and potentially even death... It was all very useful information, and likely very pertinent to Ruby and Weiss... but none of it explained why Jaune wouldn't wake, or why she couldn't reach him, so Pyrrha felt her interest in the subject dying out as quickly as the campfire. Though, there was one thing she was still curious about. "How do you know about all of this, anyway?" she asked, arching a brow at the older huntsman. The most logical guess would be... "Ozpin?"

"You need to ask?" Qrow raised an eyebrow. He looked back at the fire a moment and then braced a hand on his knee and stood. "You should get some shuteye. No offense, but you look like you could use it."

"I could say the same to you," Pyrrha said as she stood as well, trying to stretch the ache from her spine. She didn't move though, still unsatisfied with her lack of answers. "I did have one last question though." She paused, continuing when no objection came, "Have you..." her eyes flicked to the medical tent, "Have you ever heard... of aura healing putting someone to sleep?"

Qrow adjusted one of the clasps of his cloak and gave her a confused frown, "You got insomnia or something? Alcohol is my drug of choice, but that's not exactly doctor recommended."

Pyrrha shook her head, "It's not me..." she looked to the medical tent.

Qrow followed her gaze and gestured with his flask, "Your boyfriend tried to aura heal someone? And he didn't wake up."

Pyrrha didn't bother correcting Qrow's unwarranted assumptions, the small blip of irritation barely registering on her radar. It couldn't get to her, not when the entirety of her focus was pinpointed on helping Jaune recover - even if it meant dealing with this supremely abrasive old hunstman. "Jaune... tried to heal _me._ "

"... did it work?" Qrow hadn't forgotten the way she's started freezing over earlier. That could have been some side effect of her newfound powers, of course. He was no expert, though.

Pyrrha folded her arms across her stomach and said nothing for a long while, staring off into space as she ran idle fingertips over the lumps and imperfections in her makeshift bracers. "...Does it matter?" She answered at length.

"Maybe," Qrow tucked his flask away, grave with the thought that Pyrrha might be aura linked to the kid. Her aura was messed up enough as it was, what with Amber and all. "Look, I'm not exactly an expert, but if you tell me what you know, I'll tell you what I know."

Pyrrha's lips pursed in thought. After yet another moment's pause, she sighed through her nose. "All right." Unfolding her arms, she passed Qrow on her way to the medical tent's entrance. "Come with me."

"Wait," Qrow said without moving from his place near the fire. He waited till he had Pyrrha's attention. "I'll tell you what I know, but I have one condition."

Pyrrha eyed him warily, but nodded for him to continue.

"Think about what I said this morning," Qrow jerked his chin up towards the top of the arena wall, as if to remind her of where he'd said it. "You need to get out of here. Soon."

Frowning, Pyrrha looked away, but offered at least a side glance back in his direction as she lifted the tent flap. "I'll... I'll do what I can."

"Seriously. You have no idea what's coming," Qrow had intended to try to press the point, but the stars blacked out and a rush of air swept his cloak up into his face. A feral roar echoed across the vast forestland. He fought the cloak down as the stars reappeared and the sound faded into the night. "... well, you have some idea."

* * *

Silent as the shadow cast by the hand soundlessly moving the tent flap aside, a pair of bright amber eyes loomed just outside, peering into the tent and watching Weiss work for a moment. A low voice whispered nearby, "Is the coast clear?"

"Yes," came the normal-volume deadpan reply that could only belong to Blake.

If the tent had a door, Yang would have kicked it down. "Hey Weiss!" she jumped past Blake through the entrance, Robin riding her shoulders like the world's smallest jockey atop the world's doofiest horse, "I hope you made room for the rest of us!"

"Yang," Weiss half greeted, half seethed in the icy blue light. She had just laid out her sleeping bag and now Yang was _standing_ on it.

Ruby saw her partner's hackles rising and steered Yang to a stack of boxes, "We'll help!"

She plucked Robin from her sister's shoulders and, before she could squirm too much, passed the little Faunus to Blake.

"Yeah! Blake will help!" Yang volunteered her partner's services as she grasped one of Ruby's hands and dragged her right back outside. "I just, uh, gotta talk to Ruby for a second..."

Blake stared after them, shared a look with Weiss, then shrugged and set about helping to prepare a place to sleep.

* * *

Once they were out of human and Faunus earshot, Yang finally released her squirming sister. "Ruby..." she glanced around, making a quick sweep of the surrounding area - they seemed to be alone, "There's something I gotta tell you."

"Ack, Yang," Ruby found her footing and caught her balance. She blew a strand of her hair out of her face as she registered what her sister had said and saw the earnest way she was looking at her, "Oh, uh, what is it?"

Yang ran her fingers through her hair, "Well, I didn't want to mention this around the little one, but..." she leaned forward, placing a hand on Ruby's shoulder and speaking in a low conspiratorial whisper, "That psychopath Neo is here. In this camp."

"Neo?" Ruby leaned into Yang's touch a little. She had to think way back- it felt like way back, anyway- to remember the girl with the parasol Yang had talked about fighting. Ruby had seen her with Torchwick when they fought their first Paladin under the roar of traffic on the supported highways in downtown Vale, and Yang had given them all the scoop after the girl turned out to be some kind of crazy fighter.

It was a lot easier then. Bad things happened- Weiss apparently almost got cut in half with a chainsaw on that ride, and then they crashed into Vale and a bunch of Grimm poured in. That was bad. But after the bad things, they went back to their dorm and to class and Professor Ozpin gave speeches and drank coffee and Professor Goodwitch cleaned up after them.

Now that didn't happen. It couldn't happen. Were their professors still alive, even? The weight of everything that had happened since they left on their mission seemed to weigh on her shoulders, heavier and heavier, and that dream she'd had... the one with the woman with red eyes. The food she'd just eaten felt like a rock in her stomach. Ruby swallowed and tried to stay on track, but she couldn't hold Yang's gaze and her words came out in a thick mumble, "What was she doing?"

The gradual slump in Ruby's posture did not go unnoticed. Yang grabbed both of her sister's shoulders and gave them a warm squeeze. "I mean, it's fine, she didn't attack anyone, just that Grimm. And if she shows up again or tries anything it won't be one on one this time," her teeth showed in a confident grin, "Blake saw her too. She was gone by the time Weiss showed up to... to bring you back..." Shaking her head, Yang pulled Ruby into a tight hug. "Don't worry about it though. I'm just glad you're back in one piece."

Ruby buried her hands in the hem of her sister's short sleeved jacket and hung on. Yang was warm and real, and she didn't want her to ever let go. Ruby swallowed again a couple of times to try to keep the tears back. When that failed, she ducked against Yang's shoulder, gripping her jacket harder and choking out, "I'm glad too."

* * *

"You could have just slept in the medical tent, you know," Weiss brushed dirt off of her sleeping bag while Blake moved more boxes.

Blake stared off into space for a few seconds before shaking her head. "I would rather give Pyrrha her space."

Weiss huffed. Pyrrha's space. _She_ needed space, and now her teammates plus Robin were all going to come piling into this cluttered space to sleep. Not that she didn't appreciate her team's concern, just she was exhausted and Ruby and Yang were outside talking about who knew what and it would take time to make enough room for them once they were finished...

Something dripped on the back of her hand. Weiss frowned at the droplet and rubbed her eye. It came away wet, and something dripped off her chin. Bewildered, she brushed her free hand across her other eye.

With a nice bit of space now cleared of boxes, Blake turned to Weiss... and stopped short. Tears were pouring down the heiress's face in earnest. "Weiss?..." It looked as though the stress of the day's events was finally taking its toll on her. Blake took a cautious step towards her, not touching, but close enough that she would be within reach if needed. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing!" Weiss turned, hiding her face and fumbling for a handkerchief from her coat pocket as she stood and re-established the distance between herself and Blake. The tears kept coming even after she wiped the initial ones away. She wasn't even upset- at least she wasn't before these tears she couldn't control. She stared in confusion at her damp kerchief as more tears dripped down her chin. "What's happening?"

Blake held her hands up, "Why are you asking _me_?" Her Faunus ears half-flattened in concern. Weiss _had_ taken a pretty heavy spill after acting as a conduit for Ruby... "Are you hurt somewhere?"

"You think I wouldn't know?" Weiss rounded on Blake, bristling to hide the little pinpricks of panic that slipped into her words.

Those bristles had stopped impressing Blake by the fiftieth time Weiss had used them on her. She didn't try to move closer again, but she crossed her arms, giving Weiss an empathetic frown that still managed to somehow leave no room for nonsense. "This has been an extremely trying couple of days... maybe it's stress?" Even as she spoke, her Faunus ears twisted towards a new sound, more crying, footsteps headed their way.

The tent flap swished open, held open by Yang as she led Ruby back inside. Yang was watery-eyed herself, but Ruby looked almost as distraught as Weiss...

Eyes narrowing in suspicion, Blake looked between the two tearful partners.

"Weiss!" Ruby had mostly cried herself out with Yang. They hadn't really talked, but just being with her and... well... it had helped, sort of, but she had felt strangely anxious. Now it looked like Weiss was crying too, and Weiss _never_ cried. Not usually, anyway. She wiped her nose on her sleeve and hurried to her partner's side, hands hovering but not touching, "Are you okay? What happened?"

"Nothing happened!" the heiress snapped harsh enough for Ruby to back off. She scrubbed her eyes again, "and I am NOT stressed. I just don't know why this won't stop!"

With a quick swipe at her own still-drying eyes, Yang immediately went to the distressed heiress in her sister's stead. "Weiss, hey, it's okay," she took hold of Weiss's cool hands in her own, lending a bit of warmth, "we're all a bit tired, right?"

"Don't touch me!" Weiss's pitch rose in frustration as she snatched her hands away, "Yes, I'm _tired_ , but that has nothing to do with- with this!" she half gestured to her face, but already something had changed. Turning partly away from Yang, she rubbed her eyes again.

Ruby watched her partner stare at her hand in consternation. She hazarded, "... Weiss?"

" _Don't_ touch me." The heiress dabbed her eyes with her handkerchief again, not quite believing that the tears had just... stopped.

Blake's eyes narrowed further, still bouncing between Ruby and Weiss. "Ruby," she said at length, stepping close enough to tap her shoulder, "would you mind if I tested a theory?"

All Ruby could think about was how to fix whatever had made Weiss so upset- hugging Yang had made her feel better (even though she still probably needed to talk about it), but that wouldn't make Weiss feel better right now. She could still see the damp spots on her jacket sleeve from her tears. They showed dark in the pale blue light. Was she tired? Was it something after the whole aura healing thing? Was it just... everything that had happened? She darted a startled look at Blake when she tapped her, "Oh, uh, sure? A theory? Is it something to help?"

"...Maybe," Blake said, gently taking one of Ruby's hands in her own. Without warning she swiftly wrenched Ruby's arm into a tight lock behind her back, cranking it to the point of fairly severe pain, but just shy of the point of injury.

"What-ouch, ouch!" Ruby yelped, hitting Blake on the leg reflexively to tap out. At the same time, Weiss jumped as if stung, her arm jerking to her side and making a fist where Myrtenaster's handle usually rested.

"What's wrong with you?!" she grabbed Blake's wrist and shoulder and get her to let go of Ruby.

"Sorry," Blake released Ruby and stepped back.

Yang practically flew to her sister's side and pulled her into a protective hug, "Um, what the _heck_ Blake?"

Blake raised a hand in apology, but addressed Weiss, "Did you feel anything?"

"Aside from a sudden urge to throw you all out of the tent?" Weiss growled, unconsciously rubbing her arm.

"Ugh, okay, get off," Ruby shook her arm out, squirming out of Yang's hug, her silver eyes darting between Weiss and Blake, "Wait, was that part of the theory?"

Blake frowned at Weiss's supremely unhelpful sass, answering Ruby instead. "I may be putting too much stock into your uncle's tall tales..."

There was a beat of silence.

"... about the aura healing?" Ruby ventured with some hesitation, as that was the only tall tale she knew of Blake hearing. Her elbow was still a little sore, and she rubbed it to try to loosen it up.

Weiss darted a glance at her partner and dropped her hand away from her arm.

A single golden brown arched at Weiss. "Tall tale is a little bit harsh," Yang's shoulders brief ly lifted with her tone as she looked to Blake, "As much as I rag on the old man, Uncle Qrow is usually pretty straight with us when it comes to the serious stuff..." She eyed Ruby, then Weiss.

After a small hum of thought, Yang launched a surprise tickle attack on her little sister.

Ruby was no stranger to tickle attacks and had just been attacked by Blake thirty seconds ago, but all she managed to do to try to avoid it in the cramped tent was yelp and throw herself backwards into a stack of boxes as Yang tackled her and started tickling.

She didn't notice Weiss shriek and jump like she'd been shocked, but she did notice the sharp sound of her glyphs- a dark circle bloomed beneath her and Yang and the next thing she knew they were hitting the cold dirt in the dark outside the tent. Boxes tumbled around them and Ruby pushed herself up from where she'd landed on top of her sister, "Yang, why did- you're not-" she struggled to get her cloak back behind her instead of flipped up over her head, "You're not helping! At /all/."

"Get out!" came Weiss's yelling from inside the tent. Presumably the yelling was directed at Blake, since Ruby and Yang were lying on the ground. "Get out right now or I swear, Blake-!"

"Or what, Weiss?" Blake's voice was a bit softer but carried just as forcefully. The Faunus stood her ground a few steps from the tent opening the sisters had just flown through, though she did take a split second to glance over and see them piled in a relatively unharmed heap before the flap fell shut again. As she eyed Weiss in what felt like a stare-down, Blake felt Robin cling to the back of her leg. Sighing, Blake placed a hand on the little girl's head. "You felt it," she said to Weiss, her Faunus ears half-flattening in concern, "didn't you?"

In the frosty blue lighting it was difficult to tell whether the heiress was paler than usual. Her gaze flickered to the child clinging to Blake's leg and back, wavering. She didn't know _what_ she'd felt, and not having any control over it was terrifying.

Her fear was palpable, but Blake had no idea how to console her. She didn't even really know what exactly was happening, she just had hunches. Not that she had gone about investigating those hunches very well. Blake's ears flattened further with embarrassment - why hadn't _she_ thought of a more harmless method like tickles? "I... promise not to attack Ruby again... if that helps."

By the end of Blake's offer, Weiss had her mask back in place. She met Blake's gaze and her voice came out schooled and even, though she didn't quite unclench her fists. "Just get out so I can sleep."

Just as Blake was about to answer, Yang cautiously poked her head in the tent, a few bits of debris still sticking out of her dirt-smeared hair. "Aw c'mon Weiss, how are you supposed to sleep without the warm and comforting presence of your team?"

"Ugh! Fine," Weiss clearly wasn't going to be able to get them to leave, so she gave up, storming past Blake and shoving Yang and Ruby out of the way as she left the tent. "I'm going for a walk. Alone," she snapped when Ruby and Yang moved to join her. "Leave. Me. _Alone_."

Ruby grabbed Yang's arm, watching Weiss stalk off towards the fire. A lump lodged in her throat- she didn't want her partner to be alone, or mad. She tried to swallow, but she was annoyed and kind of mad herself at her team for doing... whatever they's just done. "I think... we should let her go for a little bit."

It was dark without the light from Weiss's sword.

Yang bit her lip. Her natural instinct was most definitely one that involved running after people and enveloping them in hugs... but also she trusted Ruby's judgement whenever it came to Weiss, so she held back, watching their icy teammate practically speed walk away from them.

"I could track her," Blake offered once the heiress was out of earshot. Amber eyes cut in a diagonal glance towards Ruby. "She would never know."

Ruby returned the glance, her hands still buried in Yang's sleeve. Her eyes were still adjusting to the dark. She took a deep breath. "Yeah... actually, let's have a three-quarters team meeting in the tent."

She needed to know what was going on, what Blake thought was going on, and why Weiss had been crying before. Most likely Weiss would stay in camp- they could check on her after Ruby was on the same page as everyone else.

* * *

Weiss pushed open the flap of the medical tent and strode inside. It was quiet in the way rooms are quiet when someone's asleep in them- all stillness and soft breathing. Someone snored a little- maybe Sage or Yatsuhashi, from the size of the person under the blankets near the tent wall. A small Dust lamp gave off a soft orange glow over near Jaune's cot. Pyrrha and Ruby's Uncle glanced at her when she entered, and she glared at them briefly on her way to the stack of blankets. She availed herself of a couple of them and bundled up to sleep on the cot Ruby and Yang had used earlier in the day.

Qrow watched the heiress make a blanket nest on one of the cots and settle in. Brow raised, he turned back to Pyrrha, "Yeah, I've never heard of one person waking up and the other staying down- well, staying down in a 'still alive' way-but the whole aura sharing thing isn't exactly a normal situation. You have any weird dreams, or anything?"

Pyrrha watched Weiss a moment longer, her lips just shy of quirking into a smile. Even in conditions that must have seemed barely better than homelessness to a girl of her upbringing and social standing, the heiress looked so comfortable buried in all those blankets... enough that the slightest bit of envy stirred in Pyrrha's heart.

"I actually... haven't been sleeping well," she admitted quietly, finally meeting Qrow's gaze. He was one of the small handful of people actually taller than herself, but with the way he slouched they ended up just about even in height. It gave her an excuse to slouch a bit herself. "At all."

Qrow kept his voice down as he leaned on the blonde kid's cot. "... is that unusual?"

Personally, he could sleep just about anywhere. He had a hair trigger wake-up, but generally after a hard day he didn't have much trouble going to sleep. From the way the Schnee heiress had dropped, it looked like she was in the same boat, or she was good at faking. Either way.

"It is," Pyrrha's hands closed into a fists of their own volition. She wasn't fond of people coming near Jaune while he was in this state. But, she was the one who brought Qrow in the first place, and in the interests of honesty and finding potential answers... "I used to sleep very well. But ever since..." her arms crossed reflexively over her stomach, "ever since becoming a maiden, sleep has evaded me," she attempted to smile, but it came out looking broken, "Ren says it's stress."

"Could be," Qrow allowed. If she was one of his nieces, he might have put an arm around her, but he doubted she'd appreciate the gesture. "Now, when you say 'evaded', do you mean you haven't slept period?"

"I can sleep a little bit," Pyrrha almost sounded defensive, a bright spark in her eyes as she squinted at Qrow, "I've... gotten close to an entire hour. On occasion. ... Well, once." Pyrrha's gaze drifted lower and lower with each word, until it rested squarely on the ground, "It's... usually only for a few minutes at a time."

Qrow went still, his interest sharpened. "A few minutes at a time for the past, what? Three and a half weeks?"

It had to have something to do with Amber. He ran his hand over his face. Ironwood had sure messed this one up. Without any of his fancy Atlas tech, they couldn't even run _tests_ on her to see what was the matter.

Worse, she was messed up when she needed to _move._ What had happened in the confusion of Beacon's fall was bound to have made its way back to certain channels, and it wouldn't be long before Pyrrha had more than a major case of insomnia to worry about.

"I'll see what I can figure out. In the meantime if you can't sleep, how about finding a way to get your crew packed up for a trip. "

Pyrrha shook her head. She knew they would have to leave Beacon's ruins eventually, their food stores wouldn't last forever, but with that monster in the skies swatting down whatever airship came their way, that left land and sea, and as the only boats in the area were shipwrecks... "What am I supposed to do about Jaune?" Pyrrha could scarcely imagine safely carrying his comatose body across the continent. Was it even safe for him to be moved? For that matter... Pyrrha's voice dropped a few notches, "What do we do about _Sun?_ "

Qrow searched her expression. Dust, she was so young- just a couple of years older than Ruby. All the exhaustion and fear she'd been hiding from her classmates showed plain in her green eyes here in the half light of the Dust lamp. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, his words low enough to not be overheard if anyone else in the tent was still awake, "The real question is what do we do about Salem."

Pyrrha finally dragged her gaze up from the ground, fixing Qrow with a resigned questioning look.

Qrow watched her for any flicker of recognition. Any at all. He didn't see one. Shrugging, he gave a rueful chuckle, "Bad time for a joke, huh. Like you need anything else on your plate. Look, you worry about getting ready to move fast, I'll worry about whoever's gotta stay here. I know a guy, more than likely his place is safe. Not quite safe enough for a maiden, at least not long term, but he's pretty close by and probably wouldn't mind helping out with something like this."

He nodded to Jaune, who remained still on the cot under the blankets.

Pyrrha followed Qrow's gaze to her partner. Jaune... how much longer could he last like this... She almost reached for his face, but she didn't dare, resting a hand on his chest instead. It rose and fell painfully slowly. She nodded in agreement.

Qrow watched her for a second. How much of her was the Mistral Champion and how much of her was Amber? He pushed off the cot, "See you in the morning."

"Sleep well," she replied without really looking.

* * *

Team RWBY minus Weiss sat on the pile of blankets the currently-absent heiress had put together.

Yang squinted in the darkness at what was probably Ruby beside her, and Blake on Ruby's other side. Hopefully, the dark lump in Blake's lap was Robin. "So, what's this three-quarters team meeting about?"

"Probably our missing fourth quarter," Blake ventured a guess.

Ruby held up her index finger because Blake was mostly correct. "Question one: did something happen before we came in? I mean, she... doesn't usually cry like that."

Then again, neither of them usually did crazy aura healing stuff and nightmare dreamscape things either. Still, she couldn't remember ever seeing Weiss cry so… well, she couldn't quite say 'earnestly' when the fencer had denied it the whole time. Tears, snot, the whole deal, though. Ruby cried that way when things got to be too much, and today had _definitely_ been too much, but she'd never seen it be too much for Weiss too. At least not too much for her to pull herself together after a couple of sniffles. That in itself was almost scarier than halfway losing her soul.

Blake loosely crossed her arms around Robin, who was a curled up bundle in her lap sleepily placing a collection of rocks and odd bits of metal and plastic one at a time into her pockets. "Nothing seemed amiss. We were simply cleaning up the space in order to sleep."

"Okay but how far before are we talking?" Yang rested her hands on her knees and leaned forward a bit. "Because back this morning when you... y'know... collapsed," she nudged Ruby gently, "Weiss was trying to aura heal you and she kind of... dropped out for a little while." Yang's hands curled into loose fists as she watched her sister, those silver eyes reflecting what little moonlight slipped through the tent flap. "When she woke up she started flipping out about - I don't even know - she said something was _in_ you?"

Red eyes. Black veins. Ruby paled at the memory. _I see... one of mine._ She darted her gaze away from her sister, "I... uh... in me? Like, she..." she had been telling herself it was a nightmare and it wouldn't come back, but now an icy feeling gripped her chest. Hadn't Weiss been in that nightmare, just for a second? It was all a little blurry. Her mouth was dry, and she tried to follow, "... did she say what it was?"

"She didn't," Yang's voice pitched low with worry, "She just said something was there and that you were hurt and... she was really keen on getting back to you."

Ruby fidgeted, plucking at the ragged cuff of her sleeve. Her question number two was going to be about why they'd twisted her arm and tickle attacked her in the tent, but now her stomach was twisting like it always did when she thought about her nightmares. Yang was looking at her like she wanted to know what had gone on, but it was easier to ignore them than to say anything about them. It wasn't like they were real, and she didn't have to be upset if they weren't real.

This one had been different, though. Different enough that maybe Blake and Yang needed to know about it. She shrank into her cloak, mumbling, "I did have... it was kind of a bad dream."

Yang's stomach twisted in kind. She and Ruby had helped each other through nightmares far more than once in the past... but it never got any easier to see her like this. Yang shifted closer to her sister, sitting side by side, shoulder to shoulder, and kept her voice even, "How bad are we talking?"

"Nothing really happened in it," Ruby choked out, burying her fists in the edge of her cloak and trying not to lean too much into Yang. "It was just... _bad_."

She managed to tell her and Blake a little about the fox-dog thing with its tails and red eyes, and how it turned into a woman. It sounded almost silly that it would have been a bad dream- nothing had happened, the fox-dog-lady hadn't even touched her- but the quicksand feeling of ice and dread still crept up on her, prowling like Grimm in the dark. In fact, as she spoke, she became increasingly aware that they were in a flimsy tent in the dark in the forest outside of the protection of Vale's walls. That same... had it been despair? It didn't smother her like it had in her dream. She gripped her fistfuls of cloak close to her chest just below her collar, putting pressure on a warmth that hadn't been there when she'd been lying in the snow in that dark wood.

"I think Weiss was there too," Ruby hunched her shoulders a little more, avoiding looking at her teammates, "For part of it anyway. I don't really remember."

Something about Ruby's description set Yang wholly on edge. Nothing about it felt right. Nothing about any of this felt right. Shaded memories of pitch black flames and burning red eyes clawed up the back of the brawler's mind. Dark tendrils encompassing her body... bony white erupting from her back...

After a spell of silence, Yang finally managed to form words. "Well… that explains why Weiss was in such a rush to get back to you..." She wrapped an arm around Ruby's waist, but didn't try to crush her into any sort of hug or anything. She just needed to know her little sister was solid, and real, and there with them. Anything to combat that shifting-sand sensation of everything good slipping away from her.

Yang's gaze shifted to Blake, who seemed to be lost in thought herself, one hand idly running through her small charge's hair. Amber met lilac over Ruby's bowed head.

Whether it was instinct, or some subconsciously interpreted silent request from her partner, Blake wasn't sure, but she reached around Ruby as well, making sure to rest her arm gently atop Yang's. Together, they quietly held their team leader between them.

They would give Weiss her space for now... and find her first thing in the morning.


	61. Well That's Horrifying

**A/N: SEARCH AT LAST!**

 **Hey guys, you've been way patient- we're still working! So don't worry, haha. We're aiming for good chapter breaks and some marginal editing rather than a regular schedule, so just follow and hang in there!**

 **Anyway, on with the show. Good luck, guys!**

 **\- Fiercesomest**

* * *

The medical tent was silent as always.

Pyrrha preferred it that way. From her usual sleepless spot kneeling beside Jaune, leaning both arms atop the cot's edge and resting her head in the crook of her elbow, Pyrrha quietly watched her partner's peaceful, sleeping face. His breaths came in even measure, his chest rising and falling in silence, as it should.

Silence meant no one was suffering.

A small sniffle coming from the far side of the tent broke the tranquility. Pyrrha hadn't even realized she had been drifting, but she was certainly awake now. She stood. Jaune lay still, undisturbed.

Another small strangled sound drew Pyrrha's attention to the bundle of blankets that was Weiss, curled up and facing away from her on the other cot. As she approached, she could see the blankets shaking, the barest of movements, as though the heiress was holding something back with all her might. Pyrrha couldn't see her face for the blankets. Was she having a nightmare? That would be understandable after the wild rollercoaster this day had turned out to be.

And... it wasn't even just today. This entire situation - Weiss had witnessed first hand James Point's destruction, but then kept going, her entire team kept going, working together, fueled by hope, only to come back to... nothing. There was nothing left here. Not a single shred of help to send back to that doomed town.

There were times when Pyrrha could scarcely bring herself to face them. RWBY, her friends, had arrived with hope, only to be greeted with nothing but ruins and the bleak reality of her own failure to keep Vale from falling...

The blankets jolted with a harshly stifled whimper, snapping the bone-weary huntress-turned-maiden's attention back to the matter at hand. Keeping her voice low, Pyrrha called to her, "...Weiss?"

The heiress stiffened under her blankets in fierce determination to appear to be asleep. The moment passed, though, and she apparently gave up, scrubbing her eyes and nose with a worn handkerchief

"Ugh, fine," she propped herself on her side on one elbow, still facing away from Pyrrha as she grumbled a stiff, "What do you want?"

"I-... I'm sorry," Pyrrha folded her arms across her stomach. What she wanted, she couldn't have. "You sounded distressed."

"Well I was _trying_ to suffer in silence, but apparently that's not working," Weiss sat up the rest of the way, halfway facing Pyrrha and sniffling primly. A stray tear dripped from her chin, "I think this might a side effect from using my aura to siphon Ruby's out of that _thing_."

Pyrrha tried not to think about her earlier conversation with Qrow.

...like tripping a breaker switch...

Weiss had been sharing aura with Ruby quite a bit since they'd arrived... and there was that entire ordeal with the Grimm rat toxins back at Beacon, long before Vale's collapse... and who knows whether they'd shared auras during their time at James Point, or their entire return trip...

"That was a pretty impressive feat." Pyrrha offered a warm smile to spite the worry starting to pool in her stomach, though it fell several notches when she cast a glance back at Jaune. "I don't think I would have been able to do something like that."

"Don't you dare patronize me, Pyrrha Nikos," the heiress snapped, her finger pointing at the red-head's collar. "I'll have you know I've been living out of a sled for the past three and a half _weeks_ , so I am not in the mood. Besides, everyone knows you would do the same if it would help-" she hesitated, ice blue eyes darting in the direction Pyrrha had looked a moment before. "... if it would help at all."

Pyrrha's posture slipped a bit, but she looked more exhausted than offended. If anything, even after all that had happened, Weiss was just as frank as she remembered, putting her very much at ease.

The cot whined under Pyrrha's added weight as she sat beside Weiss, her back to Jaune. She couldn't bring herself to look at him right now. "That's the problem precisely," she said, closing her eyes for a moment to gather her thoughts, "You're absolutely right that I would try to help. The question is whether I can..." she looked to Weiss, "And the answer is... I can't."

Caught off guard by the sudden intrusion into her personal space, Weiss shifted on the cot, gripping the edge, unsure if the flimsy construction could hold both her and the taller girl's weight. She used her free hand to dab at her nose with her handkerchief, still glowering a little, "What are you talking about?"

"I'm... envious, I think. Your ability to connect with Ruby seems so effortless, and I can't even-" brows furrowing, Pyrrha covered her mouth, her eyes dropping momentarily to the ground before returning to Weiss in apology. "I'm sorry-" she said upon lowering her hand again, "I spoke without thinking, I know the situation that forced you to learn that skill was... unthinkable."

Weiss could absolutely do without having to think about the rat poison situation, or the nightmare she'd dropped into earlier in the day. So she didn't, instead focusing on the problem Pyrrha seemed to be having. "You can't aura heal?"

It was a surprise, given how masterfully the Mistral champion wielded her semblance which, after all, was just an extension of her aura. Considering the trouble Weiss had with aspects of her own semblance, summoning up her aura and sharing it with someone else seemed almost trivial. Not that she knew at all what she was doing since ninety percent of the time she'd been doing it out of sheer desperation and hoping it worked.

"That... seems to be the case," Pyrrha bowed her head, resolute in her refusal to glance back at Jaune again.

"Don't you have two auras in you? That _has_ to make it more complicated." Weiss was still skeptical about Qrow's explanations. Had Pyrrha and the last 'maiden' or whatever the term was had their auras fuse? Or were they somewhat distinct? Either way her nose was still dripping and her handkerchief was becoming less and less effective. "Ugh, you're really not missing much."

Pyrrha's eyes widened in brief surprise. Of course, thinking on it a bit longer, it made sense that Weiss would know, considering Weiss had been there with Ruby and Qrow, down in those maintenance corridors... Her heart still twisted at the thought of Sun down in that locked hall. That was probably where Neptune had been spending his evenings. Sage however... seemed to be resting fairly peacefully next to a stack of crates. Either that or he was excellent at feigning sleep. Pyrrha gently ran her hands over the twisted metal covering her arms. "I suppose that could be the case... I haven't actually told everyone about that yet... I assume Qrow mentioned everything? The maidens? The Atlesian machine?"

"Everything except anything useful, like how it was supposed to work, or what was supposed to happen afterwards," Weiss resorted to using the cuff of her sleeve to dry her eyes. The tears had slowed to an annoying trickle. "I can see why it might have seemed like a good idea given the general destruction," she made a vague motion to indicate the world outside the tent, "but in my opinion having to make a choice like that was completely unfair to you."

There was that frankness again, bringing along with it a crashing wave of gratitude that momentarily blindsided Pyrrha. She could feel tears starting to pool in the corners of her eyes, so she turned her head away, hastily blinking them back. She was so used to being placed on that pedestal... So used to people simply expecting perfection of her, the Mistralian warrior prodigy, the invincible girl... There were times she wondered whether she did things because she truly wanted to, or because she simply knew it was expected of her.

It took a moment, but once Pyrrha wrestled herself under control, she glanced at Weiss again. "That... means a great deal to me. Thank you." Biting her lip, she tried to straighten her posture, but ended up slumping her shoulders just a bit, "I... I'm truly glad Ruby woke up. I was so worried she may end up like..." Pyrrha still couldn't look at him.

Weiss might have brushed the concern off (comatose Ruby had been several notches down on her list of worries while she'd been asleep, the top one involving bone masks and glowing red eyes), but before she could she noticed something... odd at the edge of Pyrrha's recently repaired gauntlet. It was black, like it could have been soot from a fire.

"Did you burn yourself?" she frowned, motioning to her mostly-covered forearm.

The question caught Pyrrha off guard. "What?" Then she looked at her own arm, dread overtaking her confusion in an instant. "Oh, no, I- I'm fine," she quickly rested her hand atop the offending area.

Well, that wasn't the reaction of someone who was fine. Weiss had seen Pyrrha covered in what looked like frost earlier- probably a manifestation of the maiden powers Qrow had talked about- so burns didn't seem that far-fetched, and after all the other disasters that had happened today the last thing anyone needed was someone getting blood poisoning from an untended wound. Besides, the lithe red-head was still sitting uncomfortably close to her on the cot, so she obviously wanted to talk. Weiss was too exhausted to be subtle about dragging it out of her, though.

"Pyrrha, we haven't exactly spent a lot of time together," as the smartest girl in school and the strongest girl in school respectively, they'd had different styles, which meant different schedules. Plus Jaune and Pyrrha were something of a mismatched set, and Weiss tended to avoid the latter. She crossed her arms unconsciously, as if to maintain a little of her own space without pushing Pyrrha away, and gave her an admonishing look, "Still. Believe me when I say that you're a terrible liar."

Pyrrha's hand clenched over her arm. She had to leave, she needed to leave before Weiss started prying... but something held her back. Probably exhaustion, if she had to put a name to it. Pyrrha managed a weak smile and an even weaker laugh, "...Am I?"

Weiss raised a brow at her because honestly she was proving her point. "Do you want to talk about it or not? I'm not sure how much Blake and Yang filled you in on what happened on our assignment, but I can almost guarantee I've seen worse by now."

Pyrrha studied the floor, her smile quickly fading. "I... don't..." It wouldn't be fair to burden someone else with something like this... And yet, even as that thought was still crossing her mind, she knew it wasn't right. It was just a cover. She was afraid.

Releasing her arm, Pyrrha forced herself to her feet and faced Weiss. "But I should." She was so tired of hiding. Heart racing a mile a minute, she briefly glanced towards the crates at the far end of the tent, at the bundle of blankets that was Sage. "Would you mind if we changed locations?"

Weiss huffed and climbed off the cot after her, straightening her coat and pulling her gloves from her pockets in preparation for venturing back outdoors. "Well it's not like I was going to get any sleep. Lead the way."

The night air held a slight bite to it as the pair stepped out of the tent and into the open, a light breeze gently stirring up the dirt loosened by the day's events. Pyrrha led the way as requested, her arms folded across her stomach as though she could somehow quell the swarm of butterflies swirling inside. With each step towards the dark opening that led to the maintenance corridors her current reality sank in a bit further. She was really going to do this. She was really going to...

Pyrrha took a shaky breath, staring hard at the dark patch peeking out from underneath her bracers. Even when gently reflecting the shattered moonlight, the dented patchwork metal was simply hideous compared to the armor she'd adorned previously, made of the finest gold, forged in the finest Mistralian armories to commemorate her status as Champion... but that set had been all but decimated during her battle against Cinder. And, despite how it looked, this current armor was... surprisingly functional. With its cobbled together design and winter's quickly dropping temperatures, no one had questioned when she quietly added pieces to it here and there. Armor to fully cover her torso, her shoulders, her upper arms, her legs...

The opening loomed closer and closer, filling the former champion with dread. Only a few paces away, Pyrrha's eyes darted to Weiss, finding her... walking next to her. Not trailing behind her, but right beside her. Pyrrha doubted the gesture was intentional, but it eased her nerves just enough to cross the threshold, stepping out of the shattered moon's light.

She ushered Weiss into a room close to the maintenance corridor's entrance, one that was likely the maintenance staff room, judging by the enormous tool bench that took up one entire wall. A lone table and Dust powered lamp sat in the room's center. Flicking the lamp on, Pyrrha turned to face Weiss, the light's slight reddish tint reflecting in her green eyes. Self-conscious, she gripped the edge of her arm once more. After an awkward moment of silence, Pyrrha found her voice.

"Is this... really okay?" She wasn't certain if she was asking Weiss or herself.

Weiss darted a glance around the room. The Dust lamp crackled and flickered like it was running on coarse grained Dust instead of standard fine crystals. Her breath hung in the air. The tools that were left looked like they'd been strapped down as per regulation when the coliseum crashed, but most had been scavenged, probably by the group. She'd been wondering why they hadn't turned this room into part of their base instead of using tents, but the echoes of an inhuman howl travelled the length of the hall outside. The hair on the back of her neck stood on end.

"Well I sincerely hope that you didn't bring us all the way here just to decide not to say anything," she gripped Myrtenaster's hilt, keeping an eye on the door just in case.

Funnily enough, Pyrrha didn't know what to say at all. Every explanation she could give ran in circles around and around in her head, but nothing came out. In the end, just showing Weiss was probably best.

With one last breath to steel her nerves, Pyrrha wordlessly called upon her semblance, the black glow of her polarity peeling back the armor around her forearm.

At first Weiss thought her arm underneath the metal was dark because of some residual effect of her semblance- the black glow that rimmed the metal Pyrrha worked with. Then, slowly, with a cold sinking feeling, she realized that wasn't the case.

Snow-white plates of bone stood out in stark contrast to the pitch blackness canvassing every inch of Pyrrha's skin beneath the thin sheet metal, spreading nearly to her wrist.

* * *

Ruby sat bolt upright. She'd cried herself out a second time (this wasn't her greatest day ever, but she did feel better now) and had almost fallen asleep when a sense of danger shot through her like a lightning bolt. When Blake and Yang stirred, she shushed them, her heart going a mile a minute as she listened in the dark.

The tent was quiet, sheltered from the wind by the high walls of the arena. Nothing made a sound, but she knew something was wrong. At least, it felt like something was wrong. She scrambled to find Crescent Rose.

Undeterred by being shushed, Yang attempted to lift her head, blearily rubbing at her eyes. "Ruby?" Seeing her little sister fumble for her weapon woke her up a great deal more. She tried not to jostle Blake, who had curled up against her side. "Hey, what's up?"

"Shh," Ruby put out her hand, still trying to listen. The hairs on the back of her neck were all prickled up. The seconds stretched into a minute, but there was no sound. Nothing out of the ordinary, anyway. The wind outside, across the top of the arena walls. Her teammates sleeping in the tent. She got up and went to the door of the tent, Crescent Rose at the ready.

By that point, Blake had stirred as well, her Faunus ears swiveling to catch even the slightest sound. At least, anything other than the slight snores coming from Robin, who had splayed out beside her. It was nice seeing the little Faunus finally relaxed enough to sleep in a position other than curled into a tiny ball, and yet... Blake gently lifted the little girl's leg that was draped over her side.

Yang took a moment to help Blake properly bury their small charge in warm blankets before creeping up to Ruby's side, giving her a questioning look.

Ruby still hadn't heard anything. She took Yang's look as a yes-I-will-provide-backup and slipped outside of the tent, scoping for something, anything in the dark.

The area around the supply tent was deserted. She lowered her scythe-rifle, her brow furrowed as her breath misted in the sharp cold of the night air. There was nothing here. So why did she still feel like something was about to jump her?

Blake crept up to join Yang at the tent's entrance.

"Do you hear anything?" Yang whispered to her.

Blake shook her head.

Brows furrowing, Yang stepped out into the night air, coming to a stop just behind Ruby. "Hey," she called softly, gently tugging at the hood of her sister's cloak, "What's going on?"

"I... I dunno," Ruby shook her head, like maybe she just needed to shake the feeling off. Her grip tightened on Crescent Rose, "It feels like something's wrong."

"Do you think it's Weiss?"

Once Yang recovered from her mild heart attack over Blake suddenly being right behind them, she arched a brow at her, "Weiss?"

"Maybe it's like earlier," Blake's eyes scanned the surrounding darkness, there really was nothing out here, "When she apparently shared Ruby's pain."

"Oh. So like... she's having a nightmare... and you're feeling it? Or something?" Yang looked to Ruby. "Where did Weiss even storm off to, anyway?"

Ruby heard Blake talk, but the only words that came through were 'Weiss' and 'pain', and Yang was talking about nightmares, and that was enough for her panic to flare up.

"Guys, we have to find her," she turned to Blake even though her instincts were telling her to _go_ , "Can you track where she went?"

Blake nodded, but her eyes darted back to their tent.

"I can keep an eye on the kid," Yang offered at once. "And y'know, stand guard in case Weiss comes trotting back here looking for us."

"Okay," put at ease enough to offer her partner a gentle smile, Blake then turned and swept the ground with her eyes, cutting through the dark with ease. All the commotion from earlier had kicked up enough dust that footprints were readily visible. She motioned for Ruby to follow her, "This way."

* * *

Weiss stood frozen, her gaze locked on Pyrrha's forearm. Her gloves concealed the white knuckle grip she had on her sword.

Clearing her throat to hide the edge in her voice, she tore her eyes from the bone plating to meet Pyrrha's gaze, "... what is that?"

Relieved that Weiss hadn't run from the room screaming, or worse, attacked her outright, Pyrrha simply shook her head. "I... I'm sorry. I don't know." Another howl echoed through the tunnels. Pyrrha's lips pressed together in a thin line. "But I can guess." Sighing, she leaned against the table's edge, head bowed as she glanced at Weiss out of the corner of her eyes. "It's... been spreading."

Weiss's hold on her weapon hadn't slackened, and she clutched her wrist with her free hand. Her wrist, where once upon a nightmare Ruby's teeth had sunk deep enough to draw thick, black blood.

She'd been telling herself that all of that had been a nightmare- a nightmare that could have consequences in the real world, but still a _nightmare_. People didn't turn into Grimm in real life. Even in spite of having seen Drei... the white fur meshing with the black under the starlight, Ruby trying to help him change back... he was a dog, though, not a human being. Her mouth had gone dry so she could barely swallow and her shoulders were square only out of the rigid practice of not letting anyone see she her degree of terror. "So that... that thing down the hall..."

Pyrrha stayed silent. After a while, she called upon her semblance again, letting her armor drop away all at once. It floated neatly onto the table behind her, and she stretched, standing before Weiss in nothing but her leather bodice, skirt, and boots. Her entire left side and a little bit of her right sported the same affliction, a frown darkening Pyrrha's features as she noticed how far down her arm it had traveled. "Sun... is the first we've been able to capture," she sighed, idly running a hand over the back of her neck where small bony spines were starting to form. "Coco and Velvet are still out there somewhere."

"The others should know about this," Weiss said, increasingly aware of how alone they were in this maintenance tunnel, shut in this room. Pyrrha seemed lucid, but the amount of skin she was showing- the amount that wasn't _skin_ \- triggered every alarm the heiress possessed. The only thing keeping her from retreating at once was the small degree of confidence that she could fend off Pyrrha armed better than she could Ruby empty handed. It was a very, very small degree, though. "Do they already know?"

Pyrrha shook her head, dutifully ignoring Weiss's hand still resting on her weapon. "About Coco and Velvet, yes. But… you're the only one who knows about me." Gently pushing herself away from the table, Pyrrha crossing the room to the tool bench. "I... have no plans on telling anyone else."

Weiss watched Pyrrha pace to the edge of the room, doing her best to ignore the starts of bone spikes showing along her spine at the base of her neck. "You can't be serious."

Upon reaching the bench, Pyrrha looked back at Weiss, mildly surprised. "Of course I can." Met with a highly incredulous stare in response, Pyrrha sighed as she pulled a heavy duty lockbox from one of the highest shelves and returned to take a seat atop the table.

"I did think about telling Ren and Nora, at first." Pyrrha placed her hand over the lock, her hands glowing black just long enough for a light click to echo through the room. "But... I knew they would have tried to aura heal me, regardless of the risk to themselves." Setting the box beside her, Pyrrha lifted its lid, retrieving a small black notebook and pen from within. After a cursory check of her arms, she jotted a few things down, "Even now, I imagine they would still try. But, after seeing what happened to Ruby- and those warnings from Qrow..." Pyrrha shook her head, setting the notebook aside so she could start taking off her boots. "I can't do it."

"So you're going to wait until you're as bad as… as _Sun_ and _then_ let them try?" Weiss had quit gripping her sword, but her fists were still tight enough to strain the synthetic leather of her gloves. She closed the distance between herself and Pyrrha and stood ramrod straight to compensate for their height difference, "Is that what you want? Because that's what's going to happen if you don't tell them."

Pyrrha frowned at Weiss. The heiress was nearly eye-level with her like this, and yet... somehow Weiss wasn't seeing eye-to-eye with her at all. Pursing her lips, Pyrrha looked away, picking up the notebook once more as she inspected her own legs. "No, it won't," she jotted down a few more notes, "I'll be gone before then."

Weiss refrained from joining the inspection- she'd seen too much bone plating already. "Excuse me?"

"Weiss," Pyrrha lifted her bowed head, "I'm fully aware of how dangerous this is," she gestured to her afflicted arm, "how dangerous _I_ am," the pen she held creaked in her hand, crushed in a desperate grip, "If I get anywhere near as bad as Sun, or Velvet, or Coco... that is, if I feel myself start to slip, I'm leaving."

She was serious. Weiss searched Pyrrha and could see that this had been her decision for days- weeks even- and it had been eating her alive almost as badly as the black creeping death on the rest of her. The weight of it made some of her terror drop away- or rather, it made her _livid_ and in her exhaustion that displaced everything else.

The heiress pinched the bridge of her nose between her thumb and middle finger, leaning her back against the workbench. "Pyrrha. I'm trying to think of a tactful way to tell you that you're an idiot, and that we need to go talk to Ruby and the others, but it's been three days and I'm running on six hours of sleep and a bowl of Neptune's semi-burned concoction," she looked up, glaring at her, "so you're an _idiot_ , and we're going to go talk to Ruby and the others."

Emerald eyes widened in surprise. "Weiss," dropping the pen and notebook, Pyrrha stood, "that's not going to-"

"We're _going_ to talk to them," Weiss repeated, refusing to give an inch as her classmate stood over her, "because you know what happens if you don't? You leave, and we spend the rest of our _lives_ looking for you out in the icy, Grimm infested wilderness. Ruby and I tracked Blake and Yang for a _week_ in horrible trackless _nowhere_ when they tried to pull some kind of moronic rescue mission, and if we hadn't found them we would _not_ have stopped looking." She took a breath but didn't allow Pyrrha to break in, "I don't care about Ruby's uncle. We have experience dealing with this sort of thing now, and a shockingly decent success rate given the circumstances. Your leaving won't stop them from trying, and under no circumstances am I going to let you make it worse by waiting until you have zero control over yourself."

Shock, a glimmer of hope, and a split second rush of white-hot anger flashed in Pyrrha's eyes, but she shook her head, pressing a hand to her temple. "Icy, Grimm infested wilderness?" She somehow sounded even more exhausted than before. "Despite what you seem to think of me, I'm _not an idiot,_ Weiss. Do you really think I'd just let myself run loose in the wild?" Her expression darkened, "I know exactly where I'm going."


End file.
